Backing down in the class action
In the meantime, in the class action brought by three US authors (Bartz v Anthropic), Anthropic has made a settlement proposal and is prepared to pay out 1.5 billion dollars. This would be the first major agreement in a court case on AI and copyright. However, only 500,000 of the total of 7 million pirated books are taken into account in the settlement and are eligible for payments. Eligible works are those that have an ISBN/ASIN number and that were registered with the US Copyright Office within five years of publication, up to three months before the download: the one from LibGen took place in June 2021, the one from PiLiMi in July 2022.
Last week, a judge provisionally approved the settlement.
Is your work included as well?
The final list of pirated works will be published on 02.10.2025. ProLitteris recommends: Do not expect anything, but fill out the form if you find your book on the list. Anyone who is registered will be informed about how to assert claims in the class action.
The magazine «The Atlantic» has already for some time created its own database with pirated works. Random checks show that several Swiss authors also appear in the results.
Unsatisfactory decision on the main point
On the substance, we consider the court ruling problematic with regard to the training of AI systems with works that were not «stolen». In a summary judgment, the ruling assumes that feeding the AI with books was «fair use» – that is, permitted by law. Only the storage of the pirated copies is considered illegal. More detailed information can be found here. ProLitteris will continue to provide information on the development of this court case. In the context of the activities of ProLitteris, you do not need to take any action – the rights that we administer for you are not affected by the settlement in the US.