After AI hit the scene a few years ago, writers like George R.R. Martin and Ta-Nehisi Coates, as well as media companies like The New York Times and Disney, quickly sued AI companies, accusing them of stealing their work to train their models. There have been dozens of lawsuits filed, and even though most still remain tied up in court years later, one of them is finally set to produce an actual payout.
Reuters is reporting that Anthropic is set to cut checks to the authors and publishers of roughly 500,000 works covered by a class-action settlement with the company. A federal judge gave final approval on Monday to the proposed $1.5 billion payout, a figure that would make it the largest known copyright settlement in U.S. history.
The original class-action lawsuit was filed in 2024 and accused Anthropic of using hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books to train its AI models without permission. The lawsuit also claimed the company did not obtain many of the books legally, but instead downloaded them from piracy sites like Library Gensis.
“It intentionally downloaded known pirated copies of books from the internet, made unlicensed copies of them, and then used those unlicensed copies to digest and analyze the copyrighted expression-all for its own commercial gain,” the complaint states. “The end result is a model built on the work of thousands of authors, meant to mimic the syntax, style, and themes of the copyrighted works on which it was trained.”
Largest-ever copyright settlement is still a mixed result
U.S. District Judge William Alsup handed both sides a partial victory last year. He ruled that Anthropic’s use of copyrighted books to train its AI models was protected under fair use. However, he found that the company’s separate downloading and retention of more than seven million pirated books in a permanent digital library was not protected, including books that may never have been used to train its models.
Rather than go to trial over the piracy issue, which could have exposed Anthropic to hundreds of billions of dollars in damages, the company agreed to settle.
Alsup gave the proposed settlement preliminary approval last September before retiring.
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted final approval Monday, rejecting objections from some authors and publishers who argued that the settlement was too small. Coincidentally, Martínez-Olguín is the same judge who this week temporarily paused Paramount Skydance’s proposed takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.
The payout is estimated to comeout to roughly $3,000 per book.
“We reached this settlement in 2025, after the court’s landmark ruling that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law—which remains the law today,” Aparna Sridhar, Deputy General Counsel for Anthropic, told Gizmodo. “We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we’re looking forward to bringing this matter to a close.”
Record payout, but limited legal impact
Reuters also reported that some authors and publishers have opted out of the settlement and will pursue their own separate lawsuits.
Additionally, the settlement may have limited impact on other cases because the case never went to trial or reached a higher court, meaning it did not establish binding legal precedent.
Among the most notable ongoing cases are lawsuits brought by The New York Times, other newspapers, and authors including George R.R. Martin, John Grisham, Sarah Silverman and Ta-Nehisi Coates against OpenAI. These separate cases have since been combined in a Manhattan federal court.
The plaintiffs allege that OpenAI copied their books and news articles to train its models and that ChatGPT sometimes even reproduces material from their protected work.
Major record labels are also suing the AI music company Suno, while entertainment giants including Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery are pursuing copyright claims against Midjourney. So even though this settlement might be the largest ever copyright payout, it might not remain that way for long.