Anthropic Will Pay Authors $1.5 Billion as Part of Settlement Over Piracy Lawsuit

Following a settlement agreement, a group of authors has revealed that Anthropic will pay them $1.5 billion to settle a lawsuit over the company's alleged pirating of works for AI training.

Anthropic Will Pay Authors $1.5 Billion In Settlement

A recent legal filing disclosed that Anthropic's settlement with a group of US authors over piracy claims totals an estimated $1.5 billion. This is said to be the largest settlement in US copyright litigation, with authors set to receive about $3,000 per pirated work.

In the press release shared to ArsTechnica, it was revealed that there are approximately 500,000 works which was reportedly pirated by Anthropic.

However, this is still the preliminary estimate of the massive settlement by the company, as it was stated that the final amount or number of works accounted for is not yet final.

That being said, all that is in excess of the $1.5 billion figure, Anthropic will pay $3,000 per work, depending on the number of claims.

Largest Settlement in Pirated AI Training Cases

The lawyer of the authors claimed that this is the "largest publicly reported recovery" in US copyright history.

Apart from the whopping payout, Anthropic is also required to destroy all the original files and the copies it made of said works from its database. It has also been claimed that Anthropic is not yet permitted or licensed for future AI training.

This is considered a landmark case in copyright and piracy lawsuits against AI companies and their training practices in the future.

Anthropic's AI Copyright Cases

Anthropic is one of the top AI companies in the world, and its technology, particularly the chatbot Claude, has earned accolades because of its features, capabilities, and advancement in the field.

However, Anthropic has seen its fair share of AI copyright cases. In one case, labels such as Universal Music, Concord, and ABKCO have sued the company, claiming they used song lyrics to train the chatbot.

The next case Anthropic faced was the class action lawsuit that was launched by authors over the infringement of their works.

However, earlier this year, the presiding judge ruled in favor of Anthropic, citing that their training was fair use. The judge recommended instead that they be tried for piracy.

This separate litigation against Anthropic did not go in their favor as the authors had a strong case. It was not long after that Anthropic decided to settle the case with the authors, which the group agreed to.

Originally published on Tech Times