Image – Getty: Sergei Ramiltsev
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
See also:
AAP Endorses the US$1.5 Billion AI Settlement Proposed in the ‘Bartz v. Anthropic’ Case
A Potential Settlement in the Anthropic AI-Training Lawsuit
Copyright and Piracy: Publishers Coordinate on the Anthropic Lawsuit
Interview: Niels Famaey on Fighting Piracy in Belgium
UK Publishers and Cambridge Call Out Meta and Piracy in Generative AI Training
French Publishers Prevail Against Manga Pirate Site Japscan
Copyright: Publishers Join Creative Industries’ Protest of Europe’s AI Act Implementation
‘A Signal to AI Developers Worldwide’
Despite the fact that the settlement in the American Bartz v. Anthropic case does not resolve the “fair use” question of large language models training on unpaid copyrighted content without license, cheers are arriving from both sides of the Atlantic for “a step in the right direction toward compensation for the unlawful use of copyright-protected works.”
Judge Alsup’s preliminary approval at the US District Court of the Northern District of California sees Anthropic paying US$1.5 billion to authors and publishers of close to half-a-million books that Anthropic downloaded from notorious pirate sites to feed its AI models. The San Francisco-based Anthropic is valued at $183 billion—a figure five times larger than the aggregate revenue of the American publishing market in 2024.
“This settlement,” says Association of American Publishers (AAP) president and CEO Maria A. Pallante, “is a major step in the right direction in holding AI developers accountable for reckless and unabashed infringement. Piracy is an astonishingly poor decision for a tech company, and—as the settlement figure demonstrates—an expensive one. The law should not reward AI companies that profit by stealing.”
Pallante then goes farther, making clear that the judge’s decision on “fair use” is not something the book publishing industry will condone.
Maria A. Pallante
“As it becomes clearer and clearer,” she says, “that one AI company after another has helped itself to the intellectual property of authors and publishers, we hope that courts will recognize that the unlicensed, carte-blanche use of copyrighted works for AI training is not transformative and not fair use. Rather, it flies in the face of the constitutional objectives of copyright law and undermines the full and safe potential of AI for all of us.
“AI companies have an interest and a responsibility to respect and sustain the very industries they rely on to advance their technology. They have a duty to share the tremendous commercial value they have achieved in no small part from the talents and investments of creators.”
At the Publishers Association in London, CEO Dan Conway says, “This is a significant moment in the ongoing global debate around copyright and artificial intelligence.
Dan Conway
“For the first time, a major AI company has agreed to pay publishers and authors for using pirated material in its training data. This is a clear win for rights holders with copyright registered in the United States and—we hope—a signal to AI developers worldwide that they must license works and establish a functioning market for AI training.
“However,” Conway says, “it’s important that we all recognize that this outcome is fundamentally limited in that it is only past use of pirated book content for training that is covered. The outcome does not establish a clear precedent that all copyright-protected content must be licensed and paid for in AI training, either in the US or globally.
“Here in the UK, the government needs to turn its mind to the AI Bill and show political leadership around ensuring that AI firms are transparent about the content they have used.”Dan Conway, Publishers Association
“The US court-approved process for claimants will be published shortly and we, along with other United Kingdom bodies, will signpost to this when it becomes available. The first step for UK publishers is to verify which of their works are included and work with their industry associations on next steps. We will be supporting our members with this, including through direct engagement with US class counsel and written guidance.
“Overall, this is a step in the right direction in the US, but the bigger battle for saving copyright in the world of AI domestically and globally is still very much on. Here in the UK that means the government needs to turn its mind to the AI Bill and show political leadership around ensuring that AI firms are transparent about the content they have used. The data which has enabled this settlement demonstrates that granular transparency is technically possible, despite the lobby of big tech to the contrary.”
‘Hardly a Special Case When It Comes to Infringement’
Conway and Pallante have joined Publishing Perspectives onstage at London Book Fair for years now, working through the reality of AI training on unpaid, unlicensed copyrighted content. Now, with their eyes open to both the accomplishment and the shortcomings of the Anthropic case settlement, they’re emphasizing that the fight has only now been joined.
“This settlement is a major step in the right direction in holding AI developers accountable for reckless and unabashed copyright infringement.”Maria A. Pallante, Association of Publishers
“Anthropic is hardly a special case when it comes to infringement,” Pallante says. “Every other major AI developer has trained their models on the backs of authors and publishers, and many have sourced those works from the most notorious infringing sites in the world. This conduct isn’t only an attack on copyright law; it’s also an astonishing breach of trust with their AI customers and our future society.
“Make no mistake,” she says, “that the court’s preliminary approval of this settlement is a very big deal and cause for celebration in the AI copyright docket. It would not have been possible without the tremendous efforts of publishers and publishers’ coordination counsel, authors and authors’ coordination counsel, and class counsel, all working together in the interests of all class members. We also recognize the bravery of the three original authors in the underlying suit.”
Meanwhile, from London’s 12,500-member Society of Authors, CEO Anna Ganley sends a message of firm support: “This is a win for authors and rights holders, and a step in the right direction toward compensation for the unlawful use of copyright-protected works by Anthropic and other AI companies to train their AI models.
Anna Ganley
“This is just the start. Big Tech is not above the law and creators’ rights cannot be ignored. The rule of law must be upheld.
“We’ll now examine these new developments in detail to understand what this will mean for authors, translators, and illustrators in the United Kingdom who have had works stolen by Anthropic, as well as what precedent this will set for the wider industry.”
And from the society’s American counterpart, the 16,000-member Authors Guild, there’s a special nod to the three author-plaintiffs who spearheaded the case: Andrea Bartz, Kirk Johnson, and Charles Graeber.
“Author groups,” the guild writes, “including the Authors Guild, the Romance Writers Association, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Novelists Inc., and the Textbook Authors Association, advised on key issues related to the settlement.
“Earlier this week, we filed a joint declaration with the court, elaborating our role as experts on publishing contracts that guided class counsel toward a fair, equitable, and adequate plan of distribution of settlement funds.
“Our efforts included advising on the format of the claims form and the default splits—50-50 for trade book and university presses, to make disbursement speedy and straightforward.”
Close to 500,000 titles reportedly are involved in the settlement’s list of works, and the court has worked its way through almost 35 questions of technical issues in the claims process.
Pallante, in her statement, adds, “AAP will continue to speak with and be available to counsel on legal and industry questions in this case, and as notice and claims details move forward, we’ll continue to request and broadly share that information with the publishing community.”
More from Publishing Perspectives on artificial intelligence is here; more on copyright and international book publishing is here; more on the United States’ market is here, and more on the Association of American Publishers is here.
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