Amazon-backed Anthropic’s $1.5 billion author settlement sets precedent for AI copyright battles
This settlement only addresses past actions, not future uses of works. The outcome is a precedent for the AI industry, which faces legal challenges from publishers, music companies, and other content creators.
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Anthropic, an AI company, has agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement to resolve a copyright lawsuit. Authors in the U.S. brought the case, alleging the company used books to train its AI models. This is the largest publicly reported recovery in U.S. copyright litigation.
Under the agreement, authors will get around $3,000 per book for an estimated 500,000 works. Anthropic will also pay the same amount for more claims. The company must also delete files and copies used for training.
This settlement only addresses past actions, not future uses of works. The outcome is a precedent for the AI industry, which faces legal challenges from publishers, music companies, and other content creators.
A portal, AnthropicCopyrightSettlement.com, has been created for authors and rightsholders to check eligibility and submit claims.
The lawsuit began in August 2024 with authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson. While a judge ruled the company could train models on purchased books, the focus shifted to content. In July 2025, a California judge allowed the case to proceed as a class-action lawsuit for all U.S. authors whose works were copied.
