Anthropic’s $1.5 billion book piracy settlement approved by judge
The $3,000 per book payment could be the ‘largest known copyright recovery in history.’
The $3,000 per book payment could be the ‘largest known copyright recovery in history.’
by Emma Roth
Jul 21, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC
Image: The Verge
Emma Roth
is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.
A federal judge has signed off on Anthropic’s $1.5 billion class action settlement with authors who accused the company of training its AI models on copyrighted books, as reported earlier by Reuters. In an order on Monday, Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín writes that the settlement will provide “meaningful relief,” offering authors around $3,000 for each book allegedly pirated by Anthropic.
The $1.5 billion settlement is the “largest known copyright recovery in history,” according to the law firm representing the plaintiffs. A group of authors — Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson — first filed a copyright lawsuit against Anthropic in 2024. While the now-retired Judge William Alsup granted Anthropic a partial victory last year, he approved a separate class action lawsuit claiming the company engaged in the “Napster-style downloading of millions of works.” Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement in September 2025, to which Judge Alsup later granted preliminary approval.
“We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment,” Anthropic general counsel Aparna Sridhar tells Reuters. “We’re looking forward to bringing this matter to a close.” Anthropic is still facing copyright lawsuits from Chicken Soup for the Soul and several other authors who argue that $3,000 per book isn’t enough.
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- Emma Roth
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