The American company Anthropic has reached a preliminary settlement of $1.5 billion in a class action lawsuit brought by authors who accused the artificial intelligence developer of using pirated books to train its systems. This is the largest settlement in cases against AI companies regarding copyright infringement.
This is reported by Finway
Summary of the hearings and positions of the parties
The hearings in the federal court of California took place on September 25. Judge William Alsup called the proposed settlement fair; however, the final decision will be made after all affected authors are officially informed and given the opportunity to express their comments. Previously, the judge required additional explanations from the parties before approving the agreement.
The plaintiffs — Andrea Bartz, Charles Greber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson — stated that the court’s decision “brings Anthropic closer to real accountability.” They believe the ruling warns other companies in the industry that copyright infringement will not go unpunished.
Impact of the case on the industry and details of the lawsuit
This case has become landmark for the technology sector, as it marks the first time such a large-scale agreement has been reached between authors and an AI developer. The plaintiffs claim that Anthropic, which is backed by Amazon and Alphabet, used millions of copyrighted books to train its chatbot Claude, including storing over 7 million pirated copies in its own database. The court ruled in June that the training process was legal but noted the violations associated with the mass storage of pirated content.
The trial was set to begin in December, and the potential damages for Anthropic were estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars. According to representatives of the Association of American Publishers, this agreement is a “significant step in the right direction” that could set a precedent for regulating the activities of artificial intelligence developers. Similar lawsuits have been filed against OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta.
Anthropic stated that the reached agreement will allow them to focus on the safe development of AI technologies for science, business, and society, and emphasized their commitment to the principles of responsible innovative development.