Executive Summary
Anthropic, the AI developer behind the Claude language model, has agreed to a proposed class-action settlement totaling at least $1.5 billion, pending court approval. This landmark resolution—among the largest in U.S. copyright history—targets claimed unauthorized use of pirated books during model training, covering up to 500,000 works at roughly $3,000 per work. In addition, Anthropic will destroy the allegedly pirated datasets, and the settlement resolves claims relating to actions taken through August 25, 2025.
Discussion
On September 5, 2025, Anthropic, the Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) developer behind the chatbot “Claude,” agreed to a proposed class action settlement totaling at least $1.5 billion. If approved, the settlement would be one of the largest in the h