Anthropic to Pay Authors $1.5 Bn in Landmark AI Copyright Settlement
Authors and publishers will receive $3,000 for each of approximately 500,000 works that Anthropic copied from online pirate libraries.
A U.S. federal court has approved a $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and a class of authors and publishers whose copyrighted books were used to train the company's AI chatbot, Claude, marking the largest copyright class action settlement in history.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín approved the settlement, which had received preliminary approval from Judge William Alsup last year before his retirement.
In her ruling, Martínez-Olguín said, “The $1.5 billion settlement provides substantial benefits to the class in light of the novel claims asserted. Success at trial was not assured, and a loss would have left the class with no recourse.”
Under the agreement, authors and publishers will receive $3,000 for each of approximately 500,000 works that Anthropic copied from online pirate libraries while training Claude. The plaintiffs alleged that the company sourced copyrighted books from piracy websites, including Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror.
In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs argued, “Anthropic has attempted to steal the fire of Prometheus. It is no exaggeration to say that Anthropic’s model seeks to profit from strip-mining the human expression and ingenuity behind each one of those works.”
As part of the settlement, Anthropic has agreed to destroy all pirated material used in training.
The case also touched on a broader legal issue surrounding AI training data. Judge Alsup previously ruled that training AI models on copyrighted books constitutes fair use, but held that obtaining those books from piracy websites was not protected under copyright law.
Reacting to the judgment, Anthropic Deputy General Counsel Aparna Sridhar said, “We reached this settlement in 2025, after the court’s landmark ruling that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law — which remains the law today. We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment.”
However, in a prior court filing, Anthropic warned that pursuing billions in damages could be a “death knell” for the company, forcing it to settle.
