Anthropic Ruling Splits Piracy From Fair Use — SkimNews
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- William Alsup ruled in Bartz v. Anthropic that Anthropic could no longer pirate books to create a permanent central library, but treated training on legally acquired books for Claude’s LLMs as fair use.
- Bartz v. Anthropic yielded a $1.5 billion settlement for authors and publishers of nearly 500,000 registered works, which the Authors Alliance called the largest copyright settlement involving an AI company.
- Tobias Wolff said 10 of his publications were used for AI training without permission and called the uncompensated use “a form of slave labor”; he and 27 other authors said the settlement was insufficient.
- Chang-Rae Lee and Wolff opted out of the Bartz settlement and filed Cruz v. Anthropic in May 2026, seeking a jury trial and up to $150,000 per work rather than roughly $3,000, plus a permanent injunction on Claude training with their works if successful.
- Authors Guild is pursuing a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft and working with Congress on national legislation requiring AI companies to license books; CEO Mary Rasenberger said licensing would compensate creators and permit filters barring unlicensed works from outputs.
- Getty Images and The New York Times are among the authors, artists and outlets that have filed more than 70 infringement lawsuits against AI companies; the legal status of mass scraping remains unsettled beyond Bartz and Cruz.
- Paul Goldstein said the great majority of countries recognize a moral right of attribution, while the U.S. does not, calling that gap unfortunate for authors generally.
Why it matters: The $1.5 billion settlement compensates authors and publishers for nearly 500,000 registered works, yet Stanford plaintiff Tobias Wolff says the roughly $3,000-per-work payout is insufficient. His opted-out case instead asks a jury for up to $150,000 per work and, if successful, a permanent bar on Claude training with the plaintiffs’ books.
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