Anthropic reached a preliminary settlement in a class-action lawsuit brought by prominent book authors, avoiding a potentially financially devastating court outcome. The settlement agreement is expected to be finalized September 3. In 2024, three writers sued Anthropic alleging illegal use of their work to train AI models. In June, Judge William Alsup issued a summary judgment largely siding with Anthropic on fair use but found that acquiring some works from shadow libraries such as LibGen constituted piracy. Alsup ruled authors could still pursue a class-action trial for piracy, with statutory damages starting at $750 per infringed work.
In 2024, three book writers, Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, sued Anthropic, alleging the startup illegally used their work to train its artificial intelligence models. In June, California district court judge William Alsup issued a summary judgement in Bartz v. Anthropic largely siding with Anthropic, finding that the company's usage of the books was "fair use," and thus legal.
But the judge ruled that the manner in which Anthropic had acquired some of the works, by downloading them through so-called "shadow libraries," including a notorious site called LibGen, constituted piracy. Alsup ruled that the book authors could still take Anthropic to trial in a class action suit for pirating their works; the legal showdown was slated to begin this December.
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