A federal judge in San Francisco has given final approval to Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement of a class action copyright lawsuit, making it the largest known copyright settlement in US history.

The lawsuit was filed back in 2024 by the writers, who argued that the company used pirated versions of their books without permission to teach its chatbot Claude to respond to human prompts.

The deal was ruled in favor of the creators, but not entirely: training on books was considered fair use by now-retired Judge William Alsup, but using pirated versions of the books was found to be a violation. The fair use ruling could set a significant precedent for how AI training on other creative works, including visual art, music, and film, is treated in future cases.

Some authors objected to the settlement, arguing it was too small, that lawyers were being paid too much, or that certain copyright holders had been left out. Judge Martinez-Olguin overruled all of these objections, noting that concerns about the settlement amount ignored the real risks of going to trial. The attorneys were ultimately awarded just over $101 million of the $187.5 million they had requested in fees.

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