In the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California’s case Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (which we wrote about here), the parties reached a historic settlement. It aims to distribute $1.5 billion among authors and publishers whose pirated works were used to train Anthropic’s large language model called Claude. The datasets made from the pirated books were produced by Anthropic using digital sources.
The distribution of the settlement would pay around $3,000 to each of the rightsholders of roughly 500,000 works that appear on the “Anthropic Works List.” So why would anyone want to opt out?
- Opting out could preserve the right to sue for statutory damages, which range from $250 for unintentional infringement to $150,000 for intentional infringement.
- If an author has sold a lot of copies of the book, actual damages might add up to more than the $3,000 from this settlement.
- The settlement amount of $3,000 per work will most likely be cut in half by the publisher taking its share, and then another 20% by the book agent, resulting in around $1,000 per book.
The only way to determine whether your works are among the pirated works that are included in the settlement is to search www.AnthropicCopyrightSettlement.com by title, author, ISBN, or ASIN. That said, this proposed class action has some interesting rules that may affect your claim.
- If you opt in — which you must do by no later than March 30, 2026 — you’ll be opting in on behalf of yourself and all of your co-authors and publisher.
- If you opt out — which you must do by no later than January 15, 2026 — you’ll be opting out on behalf of yourself, co-authors, and publisher.
- After you opt out, you’ll have until March 9, 2026 to change your mind.
- If you do nothing, and neither your publisher nor a co-author opts in, you will not be able to sue or receive any settlement payment.
- Settlement payments are paid in four installments, stretched out until September 27, 2027.
Background
Anthropic was sued for infringement. The court found that Anthropic had improperly downloaded books from unauthorized, pirating websites, but properly bought, tore out the binder, scanned, and destroyed millions of other books — all of which were used as training material for Claude.
The court held that scanning and using the properly purchased works was transformative, and claims for those books were dismissed based on the fair use doctrine. However, the books copied from unauthorized websites were not subject to the fair use defense, and whether those 500,000 pirated works were infringing would go to trial. The judge reasoned that the purpose of the alleged infringement was to teach Claude how to write better, just as humans learn to write better from reading books. Rather than grapple with the uncertainty and expense of litigation, the parties reached this settlement.
Plans of Action
Call me a pessimist, but opting out of this class action may be one of the last opportunities for content creators to undermine, slow down, or at least get fair compensation before everything is overrun by AI. If someone wanted to write a book similar to an original work in the voice of the author, in a few minutes (or seconds) that AI-generated work can be created and any future works by that author made obsolete. Even factual content (like a scientific work or educational treatise) can be quoted randomly and out of context, and so contribute to a growing universe of undependable facts. “Facts? That’s just your opinion!” will become an even more common argument — and supported by the works Anthropic is allowed to create as the result of this proposed settlement.
To be sure, opting out and litigating through a contingency fee lawyer may result in a larger award; the same outcome of “$3,000” reduced to $1,000 per book; or no payment at all. The judge has held that for such books, Anthropic is not protected by fair use, but has not determined anything else. And attorneys for those who opt out won’t get paid either, unless they succeed. So, whether to opt out has no guarantees — other than making a stand on the principle that content creators shouldn’t agree to having their past works used to replace their future works.
Alternatively, if the short-term (and more certain) reward is more attractive, an author who hasn’t heard from their co-author or publisher must opt in and provide a list of the works that are included in the “Anthropic Works List.”
And there you have it: an author has to make a choice, place their bets, and spin the wheel. But they must do something! To read all about it and to make your choice, go to http://www.AnthropicCopyrightSettlement.com, or contact us.
