On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco granted final approval to Anthropic’s $1.5 billion class-action settlement with a group of authors who accused the artificial intelligence startup of improperly using their books to train its Claude chatbot.

Judge Approves Record Anthropic AI Copyright Settlement

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin signed off on what is believed to be the largest copyright settlement in U.S. history, rejecting objections from some authors who argued the agreement was inadequate, Reuters reported.

The lawsuit, originally filed in 2024, is one of dozens brought by authors, publishers and other copyright holders against AI companies over the use of copyrighted works to train large language models.

It is also the first major AI copyright case in the U.S. to settle. The agreement had received preliminary approval last year from now-retired U.S. District Judge William Alsup.

Court Upholds Fair Use Ruling but Finds Pirated Library Violated Copyright

Last year, Alsup ruled that Anthropic’s use of books to train Claude qualified as fair use under U.S. copyright law.

However, he also found that the company violated copyright by maintaining a digital repository of more than seven million pirated books that were not necessarily used for AI training.

A trial to determine damages related to those pirated copies had been scheduled for last December, with potential liability that could have reached hundreds of billions of dollars before the parties agreed to settle.

“We reached this settlement in 2025, after the court’s landmark ruling that training AI on books is fair ​use under copyright law — which remains the law today,” Anthropic Deputy General Counsel Aparna Sridhar said in a statement.

She added that more than 91% of eligible authors and publishers have already claimed their share of the settlement proceeds.

Judge Rejects Objections as Attorneys Awarded Fees

Some authors challenged the settlement, arguing it undervalued their claims, overcompensated plaintiffs’ attorneys and excluded certain copyright holders.

Martinez-Olguin rejected those objections, saying they were “ot grounded in ⁠a realistic ​assessment of the overall risks and rewards of a trial.”

The judge also awarded plaintiffs’ attorneys more than $101 million in legal fees, a portion of the $187.5 million they had requested.

“It ​is the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible,” lead plaintiffs’ attorney Justin Nelson said in a statement.

Some authors and publishers opted out of the class action and continue to pursue separate copyright lawsuits against Anthropic, the report added.

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