AI developers illegally accessed thousands of copyrighted documents and used them to train their nascent AIs. Now they must pay authors for using their work.
By Marlene Dotterer
Every author should know about Bartz v. Anthropic, AKA the Anthropic Copyright Settlement. This class action lawsuit alleges that the AI company, Anthropic PBC, infringed copyrights by downloading datasets containing copyrighted books in violation of the federal Copyright Act. The plaintiffs and Anthropic have agreed to settle.
The short version of the result is that, if Anthropic used any of your work, they must pay you. The settlement provides approximately $3,000 per work, plus interest earned on the Settlement fund, less the Court-approved costs and fees deducted from the Settlement fund. We all know that last bit means you might end up with only $20.00 once everything is cleared. But this means that at the very least, Anthropic bought your book!
If your work was used, you may have already received a notice from Anthropic Copyright Settlement (lawyers for the plaintiffs) or you may receive a notice in the near future. But you don’t have to wait. You can find out if any of your books were used by checking the database at https://secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup.
The most efficient way to check (in my opinion) is to search by author name. This will bring up the list of all works under that name that were used in the training of AI. If your work was used, you can file a claim form at https://www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/claim-form That’s all you need to do. The deadline to submit a claim is March 30, 2026.
There is a wealth of information for authors at https://www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/. This is the official website for plaintiffs. Review it carefully to make sure you understand all the legal issues at play.
I checked my name and found that two of my independently published books were used by the company. So this is definitely something that even low-list authors should pursue. It’s especially important for traditionally published authors to understand their rights. You may need to submit your own claim separate from your publisher.
