Judge approves Anthropic's $1.5B settlement of authors' AI copyright lawsuit — first major case to settle

On Monday, District Judge Araceli Martinez‑Olguin granted final approval to Anthropic’s $1.5 billion settlement of a class action filed by authors who claimed the company used pirated copies of their books to train its chatbot Claude. The deal, the largest known U.S. copyright settlement, follows an earlier approval by now‑retired Judge William Alsup in September and a June ruling that Anthropic had violated authors’ rights by storing more than 7 million pirated titles in a “central library” that could be used for AI training.

Some authors and publishers objected that the settlement was too small, over‑compensated attorneys, or excluded certain copyright owners. Judge Martinez‑Olguin rejected those objections, stating they were “not grounded in a realistic assessment of the overall risks and rewards of a trial,” and awarded attorneys over $101 million of the $187.5 million they sought in fees. A few authors opted out and are pursuing separate lawsuits against Anthropic, while the settlement remains the first major U.S. case to resolve a copyright dispute over large‑language‑model training.

(Source：New York Post)