Anthropic and a group of authors said that they have reached a “settlement in principle” of the creators’ class action lawsuit against the AI company.
The judge in the case, William Alsup, set a hearing on Sept. 8 to preliminarily approve the class settlement. The terms of the settlement have not yet been disclosed.
In June, Alsup ruled that Anthropic’s use of the books in training models was “exceedingly transformative,” one of the factors courts have used in determining whether the use of protected works without authorization was a legal “fair use.” His decision was the first major decision that weighed the fair use question in generative AI systems.
Yet Alsup also ruled that Anthropic had to face a trial on the question of whether it is liable for downloading millions of pirated books in digital form off the internet, something it had to do in order to train its models for its AI service Claude.
“That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for the theft but it may affect the extent of statutory damages,” the judge wrote.
Alsup’s summary judgment ruling came in a case brought by a group of authors, including Andrea Bartz, author of The Lost Night: A Novel, The Herd, We Were Never Here, and The Spare Room. They argued that the use of their works to train Claude violated copyright law.
A trial in the case was scheduled to start in December.
The settlement came after the parties met for mediation earlier this month. The parties said that they expected to “finalize and execute a full-form settlement agreement” on or before September 3.
