Authors Fight Claims on $1.5B Anthropic Settlement

Authors expecting payouts from Anthropic's $1.5 billion copyright class action settlement are pushing back against publishers and literary agents who are allegedly claiming undeserved shares of the money. The settlement, which received final approval in July after a judge ruled that training AI models on copyrighted material is legal under fair use but pirating is not, covers nearly 500,000 titles. Under the terms, authors are supposed to receive $3,000 for each pirated work.

The settlement dictates that the $3,000 payment is split 50-50 between the author and the publisher if the book is still in print. If the book was self-published or if the rights reverted back to the author because it went out of print, the author is entitled to the full 100% payment. However, writers have reported that publishers are claiming rights to books that reverted years ago, or demanding the full 100% payout instead of the designated half. To claim the full amount, the rights reversion must have occurred before the settlement's download date of August 10, 2022.

Industry observers like Victoria Strauss of the Writers Beware blog suggest these errors stem from poor record-keeping rather than malice, though the high volume of complaints points to a systemic issue. Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger echoed this sentiment, attributing the disputes to a confusing settlement process and bad data. Meanwhile, some literary agencies are also attempting to claim a percentage of the payouts, drawing sharp criticism from authors like Courtney Milan, who pointed out that agents do not hold the actual copyrights to the books they sell.