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Headline: Anthropic too Pay $150 Million in Landmark Copyright Settlement with Authors Over AI Training
Subheadline: The AI company will compensate writers for using pirated books to train its chatbot,perhaps setting a precedent for future copyright disputes in the AI industry.by [Your Name/News Outlet Name]
Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has agreed to pay $150 million (NZ$2.54 billion) to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by book authors. The authors alleged that Anthropic used pirated copies of their works to train its chatbot,Claude.
The proposed settlement, which requires a judge’s approval, could be a watershed moment in the ongoing legal battles between AI companies and creative professionals who claim copyright infringement.
Key Settlement Terms
Anthropic will pay authors and publishers approximately $300 (NZ$5000) for each of the estimated 500,000 books covered by the settlement.
The company has agreed to destroy the original book files it downloaded.
“As best as we can tell,it’s the largest copyright recovery ever,” said Justin Nelson,a lawyer representing the authors. “It is the first of its kind in the AI era.”
The lawsuit was initiated last year by thriller novelist Andrea Bartz and nonfiction writers Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson.They represent a broader group of writers and publishers whose books were used by Anthropic to train its Claude chatbot.
Background of the Case
A federal judge issued a mixed ruling in June, stating that while training AI chatbots on copyrighted books wasn’t inherently illegal, Anthropic had improperly obtained millions of books through pirate websites.
Experts believe that had Anthropic not settled, a trial scheduled for December could have resulted in considerably higher costs for the company.
“We were looking at a strong possibility of multiple billions of dollars,enough to potentially cripple or even put Anthropic out of business,” said Thomas Long,a legal analyst for wolters Kluwer.
Anthropic stated that the settlement, if approved, “will resolve the plaintiffs’ remaining legacy claims.”
“We remain committed to developing safe AI systems that help people and organizations extend their capabilities, advance scientific discovery, and solve complex problems,” said Aparna Sridhar, the company’s deputy general counsel.
The Role of Pirated Books in AI Training
books are crucial sources of data for training AI large language models, providing billions of carefully constructed words. The judge in the case found that Anthropic had downloaded over 7 million digitized books that it “knew had been pirated.” This included:
Nearly 200,000 books from Books3, an online library assembled by AI researchers. At least 5 million copies from the pirate website Library Genesis (LibGen).
At least 2 million copies from the Pirate Library Mirror.Andrea Bartz’s debut thriller novel, “The Lost Night,” was among the books found in the dataset.
Industry Reactions
Mary Rasenberger,CEO of the Authors guild,hailed the settlement as “an excellent result for authors,publishers,and rightsholders generally,” sending a strong message against using pirated works to train AI.
However, the Danish Rights Alliance expressed concerns that the settlement would offer little help to European writers and publishers whose works aren’t registered with the US copyright office.
Thomas Heldrup, the group’s head of content protection and enforcement, noted that while it’s comforting to see consequences for using illegal file-sharing sites, the settlement might be viewed by the tech industry as a relatively small price to pay for breaking the rules.
Implications for the AI Industry
The settlement could influence othre ongoing disputes,including lawsuits against OpenAI,Microsoft,Meta,and Midjourney. Another group of authors recently sued Apple in the same San Francisco federal court.
“This indicates that maybe for other cases, it’s possible for creators and AI companies to reach settlements without having to essentially go for broke in court,” said Long.
While the industry initially praised the judge’s earlier ruling that training AI systems on copyrighted works could qualify as “fair use,” internal concerns within Anthropic about the legality of using pirate sites were revealed in court documents.The company later shifted its approach, hiring tom Turvey, the former Google executive in charge of Google Books, and began legally acquiring books in bulk for digitization.[
[Image of Andrea Bartz]
Caption: Thriller novelist Andrea Bartz, a lead plaintiff in the case. (Source: Associated Press)
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