Authors Sue AI Firm Anthropic for $75 Million Over Alleged Copyright Infringement

More than 100 authors have filed a lawsuit demanding over $75 million from the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, alleging that their books were used without permission to train the company's AI systems. The lawsuit, filed in the Northern California District Court on June 17, accuses Anthropic of infringing on the copyrights of at least 100 authors by using more than 500 pirated books to train its AI models.

Among the authors named in the suit are Nolan Bushnell, co-founder of Atari; Zachary Sklar, who was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay for JFK; and Donna Barba Higuera, a Newbery Medal winner. The suit also includes Tiffany Aliche, author of the New York Times bestseller “Get Good with Money,” and Laura Esquivel, author of the international bestseller “Like Water for Chocolate.”

The plaintiffs are seeking $150,000 for each pirated work, according to the court filing. The lawsuit alleges that Anthropic utilized a file-sharing program called BitTorrent to access illegal websites, including Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror, to download millions of unauthorized book copies. These works were then allegedly uploaded to Anthropic's "vast central library" for its AI, Claude, to use.

This legal action follows a previous class-action lawsuit against Anthropic, which resulted in a $1.5 billion settlement in September. In that settlement, Anthropic agreed to destroy downloaded copies of books that authors accused it of pirating. However, the settlement still allowed for potential infringement claims related to material produced by the company's AI models.

Authors involved in the earlier case, which included thousands of writers, reportedly received approximately $3,000 per stolen work. Across all class-action and individual lawsuits, Anthropic has allegedly misappropriated about 7 million creative works.

James Bartolemei, the lead lawyer for the current plaintiffs, stated that the lawsuit not only argues Anthropic stole copyrighted books but also redistributed them. "Anthropic built the future of artificial intelligence on the books of authors — past, present, and living," Bartolemei said. "My clients ask a simple question: is that innovation, or is it theft with better marketing? Let a jury decide."

Anthropic, which partners with companies such as Microsoft and Amazon, did not respond to a request for comment.