{"id":114006,"date":"2026-07-21T22:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/114006\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T22:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T22:22:12","slug":"anthropic-pays-1-5-billion-to-settle-a-copyright-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/114006\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthropic pays $1.5 billion to settle a copyright case"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anthropic has officially settled a class action case<\/a> with authors of books it downloaded to train its AI. The price tag is $1.5 billion. A judge gave final approval yesterday. After attorneys fees and other costs, authors will get about $3,000<\/a> for each work. <\/p>\n

This settlement is the first big one, but just one of many lawsuits still pending<\/a>. Key legal questions about copyright and how AI companies are using human-made content remain unresolved. <\/p>\n

AI companies say they can use copyrighted works to train their models because of a legal doctrine called fair use<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cSome classic examples of fair use might be commentary, criticism, parody,\u201d said Ben Sobel, an assistant professor of law at the University of Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

Sobel said AI companies have so far been successful with their fair use arguments. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou get a sense of the way the wind is blowing,\u201d Sobel said.<\/p>\n

Even in the Anthropic case, the presiding judge found its use of copyrighted books to train Claude qualified as fair use. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe underlying legal conclusions are ones that are relatively good for AI firms,\u201d Sobel said.<\/p>\n

So why settle? Because the judge also found anthropic illegally copied and stored millions of pirated books<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a narrow issue,\u201d said James Grimmelmann, professor of digital and information law at Cornell Law School. \u201cIt was financially very dangerous to Anthropic, so they were highly incentivized to cut a large check.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Grimmelmann said appeals courts still need to weigh in on the larger question of if and how AI companies can use copyrighted works \u2014 and they\u2019ll have plenty of opportunities ahead. Dozens of cases<\/a> are pending against OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and others<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe lawsuits are coming from essentially every sector of human creativity,\u201d Grimmelman said.<\/p>\n

Newspapers, recording labels, movie studios, and more. AI companies have increasingly been entering into deals<\/a> to avoid court fights<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI get letters from my publishers asking me to agree to let them license my books \u2026 to AI companies,\u201d Grimmelman said.<\/p>\n

Jane Ginsburg, professor of literary and artistic property law at Columbia Law School \u2014 who has edited or coauthored 16 books, mostly about copyright and intellectual property \u2014 has granted permission. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a means of maybe getting the authors something, also having some control over how the the books are used,\u201d Ginsburg said.<\/p>\n

Although, she said, such licensing deals could eventually work against AI companies, undercutting their fair use claims. After all, she asked, why would these companies need to cut a deal if they\u2019re certain the law is on their side?<\/p>\n

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