WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A federal judge in the U.S. has officially approved Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement from a class-action lawsuit filed by authors and book publishers concerning the company's use of copyrighted content to train its AI models.
Under the terms of the settlement, authors and publishers will receive $3,000 for each work involved, which impacts around 500,000 books in total. This deal is thought to be the largest copyright settlement in the history of the U.S.
This case stemmed from a decision made by Judge William Alsup, stating that Anthropic illegally downloaded and stored millions of copyrighted books from various pirate websites. However, he also determined that using books for AI training may fall under fair use.
He clarified that while Anthropic had the right to train its AI on books it legally obtained, downloading from piracy sites like Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror crossed legal lines.
Anthropic opted to settle before the piracy allegations could go to trial. This agreement wraps up the current case, but it doesn't create a binding legal precedent, meaning that other copyright lawsuits targeting AI firms like Google, Meta, Midjourney, and OpenAI will still be resolved on their own merits.
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