"First of its kind" AI settlement: Anthropic to pay authors $1.5 billion

"believed to be the largest publicly reported recovery in the history of US copyright litigation."

"It will provide meaningful compensation for each class work and sets a precedent requiring AI companies to pay copyright owners," Nelson said."

"This settlement sends a powerful message to AI companies and creators alike that taking copyrighted works from these pirate websites is wrong."

"an excellent result for authors, publishers, and rightsholders generally."

Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion and destroy all copies of books used without permission to train its AI models. The settlement covers 500,000 works allegedly pirated for AI training. If a court approves the settlement, each author will receive $3,000 per work stolen, with the final figure potentially higher depending on the number of claims submitted. Anthropic has agreed to the terms but requires court approval; preliminary approval may occur soon while the final decision could be delayed until 2026. Lawyers and author groups say the settlement provides meaningful compensation, sets a precedent requiring AI companies to pay copyright owners, and signals consequences for pirating authors' works.

Read at Ars Technica