Anthropic has reached a settlement in a class action lawsuit brought by several authors in the United States who accused the artificial intelligence company of infringing on copyright laws. According to legal documents submitted on Tuesday, the company has proposed a settlement which will allow it to avoid a trial that would evaluate the amount owed for allegedly utilizing unauthorized materials in training its AI models.
Specific details regarding the settlement remain undisclosed, but it is tied to a lawsuit filed last year by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson. They argued that Anthropic used an open-source dataset containing pirated content to train its Claude AI models.
In June, Anthropic achieved a significant legal victory when Judge William Alsup declared that training AI models using legally acquired books falls under fair use. Nevertheless, the judge indicated that the matter could still be subject to further legal scrutiny. Subsequently, in July, Judge Alsup gave the green light for a class action suit from U.S. authors claiming Anthropic engaged in “Napster-style downloading” of vast numbers of literary works. With a trial date set for December, the company faced potential liabilities that could reach into the trillions, according to Wired.
The proposed settlement is anticipated to be finalized by September 3rd. “This historic settlement will benefit all class members,” stated Justin Nelson, an attorney representing the authors, in remarks to Technology News. “We look forward to sharing further details about the settlement in the weeks ahead.” Anthropic has chosen not to provide any comment on the matter.
2 Comments
