AP News and other outlets reported on September 25 that U.S. District Judge William Alsup approved a $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and authors who claim roughly 465,000 books “had been illegally pirated to train chatbots.” The settlement allows for authors and publishers to be paid about $3,000 for each book. In working out the settlement, Judge Alsup was mainly concerned about ensuring every eligible author is informed and made aware of the claim.
Why This Approval and Settlement is Significant
This is not the only lawsuit involving copyright infringement with large AI companies. According to Bloomberg, there are “dozens” of copyright lawsuits that are pending involving OpenAI, Meta and Midjourney, to name a few. The Anthropic deal is believed to be one of the largest US copyright settlements in history and will be viewed as setting a precedent and influencing companies that are fighting similar lawsuits.
Now with the likelihood that the settlement has been reached, it was observed that “the content-licensing market will accelerate, and the dollars will be bigger.” This observation about the acceleration of the content-licensing market is spot on. In an amicus brief filed by the Association of American Publishers in support of plaintiffs in the AI class action lawsuit against Meta, it was noted that the AI training license market is valued (estimated) currently at $2.5 billion and is projected to grow to $30 billion in a ten year period.
In addressing the preliminary approval of Anthropic’s case, the Association of American Publishers and Authors Guild has declared:
- This settlement is a milestone for authors fighting against AI companies who steal their works.
- It puts AI companies on notice that infringing on authors’ rights comes at a high cost.
- Going forward, AI companies will need to acquire books for inclusion legally and via through licensing.
- This case highlights how crucial class actions can be for fighting mass copyright infringement practices.
Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay
