Copyright
Court grants final approval to Anthropic’s $1.5 billion book settlement
A federal court approved a $1.5 billion settlement over Anthropic’s acquisition and copying of pirated books, while earlier litigation treated the training-use question separately.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California
What happened
On July 20, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted final approval of the Bartz class-action settlement and entered final judgment. The court described the settlement fund as non-reversionary and worth $1.5 billion.
The covered class is limited to copyright owners of books on a Works List that Anthropic downloaded from Library Genesis, known as LibGen, or Pirate Library Mirror, known as PiLiMi. Claims involving works outside that list remain preserved and unaffected.
The settlement release covers specified past acquisition and copying claims through August 25, 2025. It does not release claims based on AI outputs or claims concerning conduct on or after that date.
Why it matters
The approval sets a major financial outcome for a case involving books used in AI development, but it is not a trial damages award or a general ruling that AI training infringes copyright. In a separate June 23, 2025 order, the same court held that training Claude and its precursors on the books was fair use on the record before it. That order also held that retaining pirated copies in a permanent general-purpose library was not fair use. The earlier district-court decision applies to this case and record, not all datasets, models, outputs, or future conduct.
What remains unclear
- The final approval order resolves only the settlement’s covered claims, not the merits of potential claims involving AI outputs or later conduct.
- The order reports Anthropic’s representation that LibGen and PiLiMi datasets were not used in commercially released-model training corpora, but the dossier does not provide independently verified technical evidence for that representation.
Related claims
Sources
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Order Granting Final Approval of Class Action Settlement; Granting in Part Motion for Attorney’s Fees, Reimbursement of Expenses, and Plaintiff Service Awards; Judgment
Used for: Final approval, judgment, settlement amount, class scope, and release limits.
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ORDER ON 122 FAIR USE. Signed by Judge Alsup. (Filed on 6/23/2025)
Used for: Earlier fair-use findings distinguishing training use from retaining pirated copies.
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Judge approves a $1.5B Anthropic settlement over pirated books used to train the Claude chatbot
Used for: Independent reporting on final approval and the earlier mixed fair-use ruling.
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Court Grants Final Approval of $1.5 Billion Anthropic Copyright Settlement
Used for: Settlement-release limits and class-scope context.