The Prague Post - AI giant Anthropic to pay $1.5 bn over pirated books

EUR -
AED 4.26311
AFN 77.220974
ALL 96.624579
AMD 445.097886
ANG 2.077847
AOA 1064.472011
ARS 1729.852828
AUD 1.787706
AWG 2.092379
AZN 1.967373
BAM 1.956281
BBD 2.340595
BDT 141.804851
BGN 1.956469
BHD 0.437602
BIF 3425.930511
BMD 1.16082
BND 1.507616
BOB 8.029973
BRL 6.25636
BSD 1.162111
BTN 102.17447
BWP 15.50121
BYN 3.959873
BYR 22752.077652
BZD 2.337195
CAD 1.625601
CDF 2548.000276
CHF 0.923712
CLF 0.028154
CLP 1104.46208
CNY 8.26771
CNH 8.272893
COP 4508.335795
CRC 583.258418
CUC 1.16082
CUP 30.761738
CVE 110.28973
CZK 24.304903
DJF 206.940859
DKK 7.468427
DOP 73.950085
DZD 151.419724
EGP 55.198516
ERN 17.412304
ETB 175.283308
FJD 2.668612
FKP 0.864873
GBP 0.867823
GEL 3.140049
GGP 0.864873
GHS 12.434163
GIP 0.864873
GMD 83.579347
GNF 10084.739099
GTQ 8.900958
GYD 243.129753
HKD 9.021518
HNL 30.533293
HRK 7.53396
HTG 152.061956
HUF 389.257524
IDR 19293.994013
ILS 3.826522
IMP 0.864873
INR 102.026526
IQD 1522.380704
IRR 48812.493489
ISK 141.596841
JEP 0.864873
JMD 186.880758
JOD 0.822999
JPY 176.040715
KES 150.140074
KGS 101.514014
KHR 4689.293849
KMF 490.446223
KPW 1044.739833
KRW 1660.878277
KWD 0.355617
KYD 0.968438
KZT 625.993847
LAK 25219.415291
LBP 104064.775425
LKR 352.319623
LRD 212.656768
LSL 20.124933
LTL 3.427601
LVL 0.702169
LYD 6.305577
MAD 10.705731
MDL 19.731934
MGA 5196.411388
MKD 61.612892
MMK 2436.35087
MNT 4175.591142
MOP 9.302326
MRU 46.344588
MUR 52.65499
MVR 17.771952
MWK 2015.147331
MXN 21.387278
MYR 4.908526
MZN 74.188511
NAD 20.124846
NGN 1704.803756
NIO 42.761614
NOK 11.666704
NPR 163.487405
NZD 2.020206
OMR 0.44634
PAB 1.162111
PEN 3.920297
PGK 4.959347
PHP 67.720511
PKR 328.82061
PLN 4.239838
PYG 8232.023139
QAR 4.235732
RON 5.082303
RSD 117.170865
RUB 94.460923
RWF 1687.3583
SAR 4.353526
SBD 9.546381
SCR 16.35744
SDG 698.227049
SEK 10.935158
SGD 1.506275
SHP 0.870916
SLE 26.895847
SLL 24341.820491
SOS 664.180397
SRD 46.059608
STD 24026.636283
STN 24.506656
SVC 10.168499
SYP 15093.318189
SZL 20.115724
THB 38.051485
TJS 10.661845
TMT 4.062871
TND 3.41215
TOP 2.71876
TRY 48.718507
TTD 7.880937
TWD 35.672356
TZS 2862.550347
UAH 48.535783
UGX 4038.02719
USD 1.16082
UYU 46.350193
UZS 14014.565012
VES 238.453736
VND 30578.328037
VUV 141.958864
WST 3.257975
XAF 656.135212
XAG 0.023794
XAU 0.000282
XCD 3.137175
XCG 2.094424
XDR 0.816022
XOF 656.132385
XPF 119.331742
YER 277.312113
ZAR 20.199533
ZMK 10448.7802
ZMW 26.292688
ZWL 373.783659
  • RBGPF

    0.0000

    79.09

    0%

  • RYCEF

    0.0600

    15.31

    +0.39%

  • CMSD

    0.1300

    24.51

    +0.53%

  • RELX

    0.1800

    46.29

    +0.39%

  • BCE

    0.0700

    23.93

    +0.29%

  • RIO

    -0.9000

    68.34

    -1.32%

  • SCS

    -0.0700

    16.6

    -0.42%

  • BCC

    1.8600

    72.86

    +2.55%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    13.97

    +0.14%

  • NGG

    -0.2200

    76.39

    -0.29%

  • AZN

    -0.6500

    83.22

    -0.78%

  • GSK

    -0.1800

    43.94

    -0.41%

  • VOD

    -0.1500

    11.51

    -1.3%

  • CMSC

    0.1800

    24.23

    +0.74%

  • BTI

    -0.7700

    50.39

    -1.53%

  • BP

    -0.0600

    33.16

    -0.18%

AI giant Anthropic to pay $1.5 bn over pirated books
AI giant Anthropic to pay $1.5 bn over pirated books / Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI - AFP

AI giant Anthropic to pay $1.5 bn over pirated books

Anthropic will pay at least $1.5 billion to settle a US class action lawsuit over pirated books allegedly used to train its artificial intelligence (AI) models, according to court documents filed Friday.

Text size:

"This settlement sends a strong message to the AI industry that there are serious consequences when they pirate authors' works to train their AI, robbing those least able to afford it," said Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, in a statement supporting the deal.

The settlement stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, who accused Anthropic of illegally copying their books to train Claude, the company's AI chatbot that rivals ChatGPT.

In a partial victory for Anthropic, US District Court Judge William Alsup ruled in June that the company's training of its Claude AI models with books -- whether bought or pirated -- so transformed the works that it constituted "fair use" under the law.

"The technology at issue was among the most transformative many of us will see in our lifetimes," Alsup wrote in his 32-page decision, comparing AI training to how humans learn by reading books.

However, Alsup rejected Anthropic's bid for blanket protection, ruling that the company's practice of downloading millions of pirated books to build a permanent digital library was not justified by fair use protections.

According to the legal filing, the settlement covers approximately 500,000 books, translating to roughly $3,000 per work -- four times the minimum statutory damages under US copyright law.

Under the agreement, Anthropic will destroy the original pirated files and any copies derived from them, though the company retains rights to books it legally purchased and scanned.

Anthropic did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The settlement, which requires judicial approval, comes as AI companies face growing legal pressure over their training practices.

Multiple lawsuits against firms including OpenAI, Meta, and others remain pending, with rightsholders arguing that scraping copyrighted content without permission violates intellectual property law.

San Francisco-based Anthropic, known for its Claude chatbot and AI models, positions itself as focused on AI safety and responsible development.

The company announced this week that it raised $13 billion in a funding round valuing the AI startup at $183 billion.

It will use the capital to expand capacity, deepen safety research, and support international expansion.

Anthropic competes with generative AI offerings from Google, OpenAI, Meta, and Microsoft in a race that is expected to attract hundreds of billions of dollars in investment over the next few years.

Heavily backed by Amazon, Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI executives and has grown rapidly since Claude's initial release in early 2023, with its annual revenue rate quintupling to $5 billion since early this year.

Q.Fiala--TPP