US Judge Approves Anthropic's $1.5 Billion Settlement of Copyright Lawsuit

A landmark $1.5 billion settlement by artificial intelligence company Anthropic has received final approval from a U.S. federal judge in San Francisco.

The settlement resolves a class-action lawsuit filed by a group of authors who accused Anthropic of unlawfully using their copyrighted books to train its AI chatbot, Claude. U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted final approval on Monday, marking the largest known settlement in a U.S. copyright case.

The lawsuit is among dozens filed by authors and news organizations against tech companies over the use of their content for training large language models. The authors' suit, initially filed in 2024, alleged that Anthropic, with backing from Amazon and Alphabet, used pirated versions of their books without permission. While a previous ruling by now-retired Judge William Alsup suggested Anthropic made fair use of the authors' work for training purposes, he also found the company violated their rights by storing over 7 million pirated books in a "central library" not necessarily used for AI training.

A trial was slated to begin last December to determine potential damages, which could have reached hundreds of billions of dollars. Attorneys for the authors stated during a court hearing that claims covering over 92 percent of the more than 480,000 works included in the settlement were filed. However, the settlement faced objections from some authors who argued it was insufficient, overcompensated the plaintiffs' attorneys, or unfairly excluded certain copyright holders. A number of authors and publishers opted out of the settlement and have pursued separate lawsuits against Anthropic that remain ongoing.

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she would grant final approval of the settlement, the largest known settlement of a U.S. copyright case.