Anthropic’s landmark $1.5B copyright settlement is approved

AI Summary

A federal judge granted final approval of Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement of a class action copyright lawsuit brought by authors and publishers. The settlement pays $3,000 per work across approximately 500,000 works. While Judge Alsup had ruled that training AI on copyrighted text constitutes fair use, he found Anthropic's practice of downloading books from pirate sites illegal, prompting the settlement to avoid a jury trial on damages. Many authors consider the outcome a loss due to the fair use ruling. Because Anthropic settled before an appeal, the fair use decision does not set binding precedent, leaving other ongoing copyright cases against Google, Meta, Midjourney, and OpenAI unresolved.