"What was the settlement amount? Maybe a few million? Maybe $50 million? I'm sorry, what? $1.5 billion. With a 'b'. And not for "book". Holy shit that's a lot of money. Sure, if Anthropic lost such a case they could have been liable for more money. Maybe a trillion dollars! But come on, we've all seen this story before. Copyright holders sue a new tech player and say their violations are worth trillions."
"And so you can't help but wonder if part of the equation in this settlement wasn't decidedly more cynical. Fresh off a new massive fundraise - one in which they raised far more than they were initially targeting, I might add - Anthropic has a lot of money. More than perhaps all but one of their competitors on the startup side. By settling for $1.5B, is Anthropic sort of pulling up a drawbridge, making it so that other startups can't possibly come into their castle?"
Anthropic settled a lawsuit with book publishers over alleged copyright infringement related to downloading books used to train models, agreeing to pay $1.5 billion. The settlement amount greatly exceeded initial expectations and raised surprise given that Anthropic stated the disputed materials were not used to train the models currently in use. Observers noted that large copyright claims often settle for smaller fractions, making this payout unusually large. The timing followed a substantial fundraise that left Anthropic well-capitalized. Critics suggested the settlement could deter smaller startups by raising the financial barrier to entering the market, while others viewed the payment as risk mitigation.
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