Tags: piracy

Anthropic is close to securing final court approval for a historic settlement that resolves claims that its Claude AI model was trained on pirated books. Nearly 100,000 authors have filed claims, and the company has agreed to pay a total of $1.5 billion, with $3,000 allocated to each qualifying work. The settlement includes a certification that no pirated content will be used in future Claude releases and a commitment to destroy existing pirated copies. The court is set to consider the final approval motion in late April, marking a significant milestone in AI‑related copyright litigation. Read more

A coalition of music publishers, led by Concord Music Group and Universal Music Group, has filed a lawsuit against AI firm Anthropic, alleging that the company illegally downloaded more than 20,000 copyrighted songs, sheet music, lyrics, and compositions. The publishers claim that the unauthorized use could result in damages exceeding $3 billion, making it one of the largest non‑class‑action copyright cases in U.S. history. The suit also names Anthropic’s chief executive Dario Amodei and co‑founder Benjamin Mann as defendants, accusing the company of building its business on piracy despite its public safety‑focused branding. Read more

U.S. District Judge William Alsup has refused to give preliminary approval to a record‑breaking $1.5 billion settlement that Anthropic reached with a class of authors alleging the AI company used pirated works to train its large language models. Alsup said the deal was “nowhere close to complete” and raised concerns about inadequate notice to class members, a vague list of works, and the lack of a clear opt‑in process. He gave the parties a deadline to submit a finalized list of works by September 15 and required court‑approved notice and claim forms by early October before any settlement can move forward. Read more