Anthropic Avoids Prosecution for Pirated Book Copies
The legal battle between Anthropic and three authors who accused the startup of copyright infringement has ended in an out-of-court settlement. The amount of damages paid is unknown, but it is certainly much less than the Californian company would have had to pay had it lost the lawsuit.
Anthropic Avoids Possible BankruptcyAbout a year ago, Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson sued Anthropic for using copies of their books to train Claude models. By the end of June , the San Francisco startup had won a partial victory. Judge William Alsup said they were allowed to use copies of legally purchased books because it constituted fair use.
The judge, however, warned the startup that pirated copies cannot be used. The three authors declared that over 7 million pirated copies had been downloaded from well-known online "libraries," including LibGen and PiLiMi . The same judge then approved the class action request.
US law provides for damages of up to $150,000 per pirated copy. According to calculations by a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, the total sum could have exceeded $900 billion. This would have meant the bankruptcy of Anthropic , as its projected revenue for 2025 is approximately $5 billion.
The trial was scheduled to begin in December. The agreement must be finalized and approved by September 5th . The authors' lawyer stated that this is a historic settlement. However, the amount that will be divided among the class action participants is not known. Further details will be announced in the coming weeks.
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