Anthropic has agreed to pay at least $1.5 billion to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by a group of authors who alleged the company used pirated copies of their books to train large-language models, according to court documents. If approved by the court, the agreement would represent a landmark recovery in a U.S. copyright case, a lawyer for the authors said. According to NBC News, the suit focused on roughly 500,000 published works and alleged large-scale infringement tied to sources such as Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror.
The proposed payout and case background
Justin Nelson, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the proposed settlement amounts to a gross recovery of $3,000 per work and described the outcome as “nothing short of remarkable.” He noted in a memorandum to the judge that the $1.5 billion figure is the minimum size of the settlement. If the works list exceeds 500,000, Anthropic would pay an additional $3,000 for each work added above that threshold, Nelson wrote. Anthropic agreed to make four payments into the settlement fund, beginning with $300 million due within five business days of the court’s approval of the terms.
The lawsuit was filed last year in federal court in California by three writers: Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson. Bartz is a journalist and novelist, while Graeber and Johnson are journalists who have published nonfiction books. NBC News reported that the authors did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Context from a key court ruling
In late June, the federal judge assigned to the case, William Alsup, ruled that Anthropic’s approach to training AI models constituted fair use because the output was “exceedingly transformative,” but he also held that downloading pirated copies of books did not qualify as fair use. Anthropic had argued that its practices fell under U.S. fair use law.
Statements and broader implications
Aparna Sridhar, Anthropic’s deputy general counsel, said the settlement, if approved, will resolve the plaintiffs’ remaining legacy claims and reiterated the company’s commitment to developing safe AI systems that help people and organizations extend their capabilities, advance scientific discovery, and solve complex problems. According to NBC News, the settlement could influence other pending litigation involving AI platforms and authors.
Nearly 20 bestselling authors, including John Grisham, George R.R. Martin and Jodi Picoult, have sued OpenAI, alleging “systematic theft on a mass scale” for using their works to train ChatGPT and related tools. The Anthropic agreement arrives as those cases continue to move forward.
