Anthropic has agreed to a record settlement of $1.5 billion in a case concerning copyright violations during the training of its generative artificial intelligence systems.
This is reported by Business • Media
The court has approved the settlement, but a final decision is still pending
Federal Judge William Alsup in California has preliminarily approved the settlement agreement between Anthropic and a group of authors who filed a class-action lawsuit against the company for the unauthorized use of their works. The hearing took place on September 25, 2025, and the judge deemed the proposed terms fair. However, final approval of the decision will occur only after all interested authors are notified about the settlement and have the opportunity to submit their objections.
This is the largest settlement in copyright infringement disputes related to the use of materials for training artificial intelligence.
“This decision brings Anthropic closer to real accountability,” emphasized plaintiffs Andrea Bartz, Charles Greber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, highlighting that this will serve as a warning to other companies in the industry: copyright violations will not go unpunished.
Background of the case and reactions from the parties
The authors accuse Anthropic of using millions of pirated books to train the chatbot Claude. The lawsuit was filed in 2024, and the company is supported by giants like Amazon and Alphabet. The court ruled in June that the training process itself was conducted in good faith, but noted that Anthropic violated the authors’ rights by storing over 7 million pirated books in a separate database. The court hearing was expected to begin in December, with potential damages for the company reaching hundreds of billions of dollars.
This case marks the first in a series of similar lawsuits against AI developers. Similar claims have been made against OpenAI, Microsoft, and Meta. The Association of American Publishers called Anthropic’s settlement a landmark step for the future regulation of AI developers.
Deputy General Counsel of Anthropic Aparna Shridhar emphasized that the agreement will allow the company to focus on creating safe and responsible AI systems for science, business, and society.
Previously, Judge Alsup had refused to approve the settlement without further explanations from the parties, but he has now recognized it as fair and balanced.
It is worth noting that earlier, the company xAI also accused OpenAI of stealing trade secrets.