Judge Gives Final Approval to Anthropic’s $1.5 Billion Copyright Settlement
Authors led by Andrea Bartz sued Anthropic for obtaining millions of books from pirate libraries including LibGen and Pirate Library Mirror while assembling a central research library used to train Claude. In June 2025, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that training AI models on lawfully acquired books could qualify as fair use, but said retaining pirated copies was not justified. The distinction established an early legal boundary between transformative AI training and unlawful acquisition of copyrighted material.
Alsup gave final approval on Nov. 20, 2025, to Anthropic’s $1.5 billion class-action settlement, covering about 500,000 works and providing roughly $3,000 for each eligible title. Anthropic must also destroy the pirated files covered by the agreement. The payout ranks among the largest copyright settlements in U.S. history, though it resolves claims over past downloads rather than deciding whether future AI training is lawful or granting Anthropic broad protection from other copyright cases.
All Coverage
7 original reportsThe Backstory
The history behind this eventSony Music, Warner Chappell Sue Anthropic Over AI Training
The case adds a new music-industry front to the legal fight over whether AI developers can train models on copyrighted material without permission. Sony Music Publishing and Warner Chappell Music are targeting the provenance of data used for Anthropic’s Claude models, not merely their outputs. Anthropic was already under pressure after a U.S. judge in September 2025 approved a $1.5 billion settlement covering about 465,000 books pirated for training, while separate music publishers have also pursued claims over lyrics and compositions.
Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music and affiliated publishers sued in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Aug. 28, 2026, also naming Chief Executive Dario Amodei and co-founder Benjamin Mann. The 48-page complaint alleges Anthropic illegally torrented, scraped and downloaded tens of thousands of copyrighted compositions to build Claude, citing titles including “Eye of the Tiger” and “Paper Rings.” The plaintiffs seek statutory damages of as much as $150,000 for each willfully infringed work, putting potential exposure in the billions of dollars.
Anthropic's Secret Project Panama Book-Scanning Program Revealed After $1.5 Billion Copyright Settlement
Anthropic launched a physical-book digitization program code-named Project Panama to obtain high-quality training data. It bought books, removed their bindings, scanned them and destroyed the paper copies for use in training its Claude models. The case highlights the legal boundaries surrounding AI training data: repurposing lawfully purchased books may qualify as fair use, while obtaining files from pirated sources may constitute infringement.
Unsealed documents disclosed on January 27, 2026, showed that contractors had planned to process 500,000 to 2 million books within six months. On September 5, 2025, Anthropic agreed to establish a settlement fund of at least $1.5 billion covering about 465,000 works, or an estimated $3,000 per work. The court granted preliminary approval on September 25 and completed its final fairness hearing on May 14, 2026, but a ruling on final approval remains pending.
Subscribe to Mark Radar Weekly
Every Friday, the week's strongest signals in your inbox. Unsubscribe anytime.
If you search news on Google, you can set Mark Radar as a preferred source—our coverage will show up more often in your results. Set as preferred source on Google →