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Authors due money from Anthropic ‘AI’
JUDGE William Alsup of the US District (Federal) Court for the Northern District of California on 25 September gave preliminary approval to a proposed $1.5 billion settlement of some of the claims raised in a class-action copyright infringement lawsuit against Anthropic PBC, the developer of the “Claude” generative AI language model and subscription services.
Reporting of the case has focused almost entirely on the likely payout of $3000 per book. Edward Hasbrouck, writing for the US National Writers Union, which represents freelances, points out that it is (of course) more complicated than that. “The list of works included in the settlement has already been finalised and filed with the court under seal, but the NWU has not yet seen it...
“Articles, poems, and chapters included in books are unlikely to be separately listed, or listed in your name. You will need to search the list of included 'works' for each book in which any of your work appeared, using the book title and the main author or editor of the book, not your name or the title of your contribution to the book.” This applies only to “works” that form part of a book that has an ISBN or an Amazon.com identifier and have been “timely registered” with the US Copyright Office.
The list of works is expected to be available soon at the settlement website. You will not be entitled to payment for works in which you did not retain copyright - which are being referred to in the litigation by the US label “works for hire”.
There will be another hearing next year, to hear any objections to, for example, the definition of the “class” of authors.
Mary Rasenberger, hief executice of the US Authors Guild: said, “We hope this sends a strong message to the AI industry that there are serious consequences when they pirate authors’ works to train their AI, and that Judge Alsup’s decision will steer them to start acting ethically to protect the future of the professional arts by seeking permission for the works they use to train their AI, rather than stealing from those least able to afford the loss.”
You are encouraged to provide your details to www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com to be sure that you are informed of further developments. This will not guarantee that you are accepted as a member of the class of people due payment; there are no announced deadlines.
More court findings against other 'AI' companies will follow.
Anthropic AI class certification: important information for authors authorsguild.org
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