Anthropic settles copyright lawsuit for $1.5 billion, a record in AI training copyright cases

A federal court in San Francisco has approved Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement with a group of authors. It's the biggest copyright payout in US history and the first major case settled over AI training data.

The authors sued Anthropic in 2024, saying the company used pirated books to train its AI. In June 2025, a court ruled Anthropic's use of the books for training was fair use, but found it violated rights by keeping over 7 million pirated books.

Anthropic's lawyer said over 91% of affected authors and publishers have already received their payments. This case sets a key precedent for AI copyright disputes.