27 August 2025
By Jim Milliot, Publisher’s Weekly – https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/copyright/article/98493-tentative-agreement-reached-in-anthropic-copyright-lawsuit.html
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In an announcement that stunned industry veterans who remember publishing’s drawn-out fair use battle with Google, Anthropic has reportedly reached a preliminary agreement with attorneys representing authors and publishers in a class action lawsuit that was only approved this summer.
In Bartz v. Anthropic, the AI company was charged with illegally using pirated books to train its large language models. The action came only after Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California ruled that while Anthropic’s training of its Claude LLMs on authors’ works was transformative and therefore fair use, its practice of downloading pirated books from piracy sites such as Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror to build a permanent digital library was not.
Alsup set a December 1 trial date to resolve that suit, as well as a number of aggressive deadlines for attorneys for both parties to meet. The Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild, for example, have both urged their members to register their titles with the proper lawyers by September 1 to ensure they are part of the class. Representatives from both organizations continue to tell members that with a potential agreement on the horizon, it is more important than ever to register by September 1 to participate in the class action.
In a note to membership sent by AAP president and chair Maria Pallante on August 26, the association reported that after meeting with a mediator, lawyers for both the plaintiffs and defendants “jointly submitted to the court a statement of potential settlement and requested a pause of the ongoing litigation so that the parties can finalize their settlement efforts.”
Both the AAP and the Guild report that Alsup has accepted the request, canceled a hearing scheduled for August 28, and requested a detailed submission by September 5 in advance of a hearing on September 8 when the details of the settlement will be made public. In addition, Alsup ruled that the due date of September 1 for works to be submitted has been stayed, but that the December 1 trial date will remain in place.
Read the article here: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/copyright/article/98493-tentative-agreement-reached-in-anthropic-copyright-lawsuit.html