U.S. Judge Approves Anthropic’s $1.5 Billion Copyright Settlement

The class action, Bartz v. Anthropic, arose from claims that the Claude developer downloaded copyrighted books from pirate libraries without permission. In June 2025, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that using lawfully obtained books to train artificial intelligence could qualify as fair use. He drew a separate line around acquisition, finding Anthropic liable for storing more than 7 million pirated books in a “central library,” a distinction with broad implications for AI developers and content owners.

On July 20, 2026, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin in San Francisco gave final approval to Anthropic’s $1.5 billion settlement, rejecting objections that the amount was inadequate. The agreement covers more than 480,000 works and is expected to pay about $3,000 per eligible title; claims were filed for more than 92% of covered works. The judge awarded class counsel more than $101 million in fees, below the $187.5 million requested. The deal is the largest known settlement in a U.S. copyright case.