Judge approves $1.5B Anthropic settlement for pirated books used to train Claude
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Judge approves $1.5B Anthropic settlement for pirated books used to train Claude.
A judge approved a $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and authors who sued over pirated books used to train the Claude chatbot. The settlement resolves claims that Anthropic used copyrighted works from a pirated book repository without permission. The amount covers damages for the use of the books in training.
What commenters are saying
Commenters split on the settlement's significance. One camp argued the $1.5B figure is a small cost of doing business for a major AI company, noting that statutory damages could have been much higher per work. Another camp stressed the distinction between using pirated books (which was the issue) versus training on copyrighted material (which was ruled fair use). Several pointed out that the money will largely go to publishers, not authors, and that the ruling entrenches a world where only well-funded labs can train on books.