Anthropic settles with authors in AI copyright dispute 

AI company, Anthropic, has agreed to pay a $1.5 billion settlement towards authors whose books were used to train their AI assistant, Claude. 

The authors argued that Anthropic had used pirated copies of their books to train Claude, without any permission. 

Copyright is a form of automatic intellectual property protection. Within the United Kingdom, an author does not need to apply for copyright or register (as they would with a trademark or patent). If a musician writes lyrics for a new song and creates music to accompany those lyrics, they will have copyright over both the written lyrics and the musical arrangement or recording. Copyright infringement happens when someone uses either the whole or a substantial part of someone else’s work, without their permission.

Anthropic disputed the claim and asserted that its copying constituted "permissible fair use". The equivalent defence in this jurisdiction would be "fair dealing" which is when someone else’s work is used for research, private study, criticism, review or news reporting.

In June 2025, summary judgment was given in the claim and the judge held that training AI systems using copyrighted content could constitute fair use, but downloading pirated copies of books would not be covered. 

In a landmark settlement, Anthropic has agreed to pay $1.5 billion to authors and publishers. The settlement relates to approximately 500,000 written works and so this averages around $3,000 per protected work. As the claim is a class action (i.e. brought by a group rather than an individual), the settlement will need to be first approved by the judge.

Matthew Howe, an intellectual property specialist and senior associate solicitor at Samuels Solicitors LLP, says: “The rise of AI has created new and unique challenges for the intellectual property world. In order for AI assistants and chatbots to learn, they need to consume unfathomable amounts of data and that seems to often include protected material/works. Although outside of the UK, this demonstrates an approach that courts may take with this new wave of cases that are coming through.”

If you someone has used your copyrighted work without your permission, you may be able to bring a claim for damages. If you require any assistance with protecting your intellectual property contact us for a free initial conversation with an expert lawyer.