Background

Anthropic agreed to a settlement of the class action filed by hundreds of thousands of writers who claim the AI developer harvested pirated copies of their works to train large language models. The settlement amount—$1.5 billion—was touted as the largest ever in a copyright recovery case. Plaintiffs alleged that roughly 500,000 authors were affected and that each work could generate a $3,000 payout for the creator.

Judge William Alsup, presiding over the case, expressed “disappointment that counsel have left important questions to be answered in the future,” including the exact list of works involved, the identities of all class members, and the mechanics for notifying and compensating those members.

Judge’s Concerns and Next Steps

In his order, Alsup wrote that he was “uneasy” about a deal that placed “all that money on the table” without a clear process for class members to claim their share. He warned that class‑action settlements often leave members “getting the shaft” once monetary figures are set and lawyers lose interest.

Alsup demanded that the plaintiffs’ counsel provide very good notice to the class and design a claim form that allows members to opt in or out. He also required that Anthropic be barred from future lawsuits on the same issue. The judge set a deadline of September 15 for the lawyers to submit a final list of works and required that the works list, class‑member list, and claim form be examined and approved by the court by October 10 before any preliminary approval can be granted.

Until those conditions are satisfied, the settlement remains stalled, and the authors continue to await a resolution that will ensure they receive appropriate compensation and notice.

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