By November 25, 2026, more than 400,000 authors and/or publishers will have received payments from the artificial intelligence company Anthropic as restitution for training its Claude AI chat models on copyrighted books downloaded from the pirate sites LibGen or Pirate Mirror Library. The Anthropic copyright settlement stems from the class-action lawsuit Bartz v. Anthropic, filed in 2024 by three U.S. authors — Andrea Bartz (We Were Never Here), Charles Graeber (The Good Nurse), and Kirk Wallace Johnson (The Feather Thief).  The Authors Guild+1.

Anthropic Payouts Divided Into Four Installments

Under the Settlement, Anthropic has agreed to establish a non-reversionary Settlement Fund of one-billion-five-hundred-million dollars ($1,500,000,000). Anthropic will fund the Settlement Fund in four installments, including (1) three-hundred-million dollars ($300,000,000) paid on October 2, 2025, (2) three-hundred-million dollars ($300,000,000) paid no later than five (5) business days of entry of Final Approval, (3) four-hundred-fifty-million dollars ($450,000,000) paid by September 25, 2026, and (4) four-hundred-fifty-million dollars ($450,000,000) paid by September 27, 2027.

The lawsuit alleged that Anthropic infringed copyrights by downloading datasets containing copyrighted books in violation of the federal Copyright Act. Anthropic denies all the allegations and denies that it did anything wrong. Anthropic argues that its use of the downloaded datasets was fair use.

91% of Affected Authors and Publishers Filed Claims

A federal judge has approved the $1.5 billion copyright settlement. About 91% of the more than 482,000 books covered by the ruling have been claimed by authors or publishers who are now due payment.

District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín said in the ruling that the class-action settlement provides “meaningful relief” to affected authors and publishers.

Who the Settlement Covers

The court certified a class of all rightsholders (authors, publishers, and other copyright owners) of books Anthropic downloaded from the pirate sites LibGen and PiLiMi, provided the works were registered with the U.S. Copyright Office and have an ISBN or ASIN Authors Alliance+1. This means the settlement is not limited to the three named plaintiffs — it includes thousands of other authors and publishers whose works meet the criteria The Authors Guild+1.

 

Key Facts About the Settlement

  • Total fund: $1.5 billion Authors Alliance+2   https://apnews.com/article/ai-anthropic-copyright-settlement-claude-books-bartz-74b140444023898aeba8579b6e9f0d63
  • Payment basis: Each eligible title will receive an equal share after administrative and legal fees The Authors Guild.
  • Estimated payout: About $3,000 per book for those who have claimed AP News.
  • Scope: Covers roughly 500,000 unique titles out of 7 million copies downloaded, after removing duplicates and ineligible works The Authors Guild.
  • Eligibility: Authors were required to confirm by March 2026 that their book is on the official Works List at anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com and file a claim form www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com+1.

 

Authors Guild Wants Publishers to Share Proceeds With Omitted Author

Meanwhile, the Authors Guild is calling on all publishers to use a portion of their settlement proceeds to compensate those authors whose books were excluded from the settlement because their works were not registered on a timely basis, even though the publisher was required to do so.

“Far too many works were omitted from the settlement due to the publisher’s failure to register the book in a timely manner, as contractually obligated,” the Guild posted on its website. “To be included in the settlement, a work had to have been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office in a timely manner and actually downloaded by Anthropic. The Authors Guild has never been given access to the dataset of downloaded works (nor was anyone other than a few major publishers), and there is no way for authors to check whether the works were in fact downloaded.

“Given the enormity of the breach, regardless of whether there is proof of download, the obvious solution is for publishers to pay 50 percent of the award amount per title (approximately $1,500) to all authors whose works were (i) published prior to the download dates established by the settlement agreement (July 2021 and August 2022), (ii) are currently on LibGen or Pirate Mirror Library (the pirate sites from which Anthropic downloaded), and (iii) for which the publisher had a contractual obligation to register but failed to do so.”

You can get more information about the lawsuit and view related court documents, including a copy of the Class Action Complaint, on the Important Documents page.