Court gives preliminary approval to $1.5bn Anthropic settlement with authors
A US judge has preliminarily approved a $1.5bn class settlement between Anthropic and authors over books downloaded from pirate libraries.
On 25 September 2025 Judge William Alsup gave preliminary approval to a $1.5 billion class action settlement in Bartz v. Anthropic. The claim concerned books that Anthropic downloaded from the pirate libraries Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror, which the court had earlier found was not fair use.
The settlement provides roughly $3,000 per eligible work, with around 500,000 titles on the works list. For trade books, the default is an equal split of each award between author and publisher, which can be varied according to the relevant contract. The settlement covers past conduct relating to the pirated downloads; it does not address the outputs of AI models.
The Authors Guild has described it as the largest known settlement of a US copyright case. It received final court approval in July 2026, after which payments to rights holders moved into distribution.
Why it matters: the settlement puts a figure on the cost of training material obtained from pirate sources, and it may influence how licensing for AI training is valued. Authors and publishers with titles on the works list, including those outside the US, should check the official settlement information and their contracts.
Sources: Publishers Weekly: Judge gives preliminary approval to Anthropic settlement; The Authors Guild: What authors need to know about the Anthropic settlement.