Anthropic hit with largest-ever $1.5 billion penalty in copyright lawsuit — court says training AI on published material is fair use, but startup’s pirated library infringes on authors’ rights
TL;DR
The settlement was finally approved by a U. S. federal judge, with a majority of the plaintiffs accepting the amount. A few members of the group refused, citing the small amount compared to the number of infringed titles, and are pursuing a separate lawsuit of their own.
Nauti's Take
Upside: the ruling brings clarity — training on published work counts as fair use, giving AI firms a predictable legal footing. The catch: Anthropic pays 1.5 billion for pirated books, and some authors call it too low and keep suing.
Nauti sees an important precedent but cautions that licensing cleanly instead of scraping now looks far cheaper than paying later.
Summary
The settlement was finally approved by a U. S.
federal judge, with a majority of the plaintiffs accepting the amount. A few members of the group refused, citing the small amount compared to the number of infringed titles, and are pursuing a separate lawsuit of their own.
Sources