Judge approves Anthropic's $1.5 billion copyright settlement with authors
A federal judge approved Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement with authors who sued the company for training AI models on copyrighted books without permission. The settlement provides approximately $3,000 per book for around 500,000 works and is reportedly the largest known copyright recovery in history.
What happened
A group of authors β Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson β filed a copyright lawsuit against Anthropic in 2024, accusing the company of training its AI models on copyrighted books.
The lawsuit alleged Anthropic engaged in 'Napster-style downloading of millions of works,' using hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books to train its Claude models. Some books were purchased legally, while others came from a database of pirated content.
Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement in September 2025. Judge Araceli MartΓnez-OlguΓn approved the settlement on Monday, July 21, 2026.
Reported impact
The settlement will provide approximately $3,000 per book for around 500,000 works covered by the settlement. More than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment.
The $1.5 billion settlement is reported to be the 'largest known copyright recovery in history' according to the law firm representing the plaintiffs.
Index analysis
Judge William Alsup had previously ruled partially in Anthropic's favor, determining that use of legally purchased books for training AI models constitutes sufficiently 'transformative' use under copyright law.
However, Judge Alsup also ordered a new trial to investigate Anthropic's use of pirated books, questioning why the company chose to download them illegally rather than purchase them.
Governance controls
Anthropic general counsel Aparna Sridhar stated the company was 'pleased' that the settlement offered 'meaningful relief' to authors and looked forward to bringing the matter to a close.
Anthropic continues to face additional copyright lawsuits from Chicken Soup for the Soul and other authors arguing that $3,000 per book is insufficient compensation.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.