Judge grants final approval to Anthropic's $1.5 billion book-piracy settlement

US District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted final approval on July 20 to Anthropic’s $1.5 billion class-action settlement over pirated books, closing out what has been described as the largest known copyright settlement in US history.

Final approval is the change here: the deal had cleared earlier procedural stages, and the order makes the payout binding. The Anthropic book piracy settlement, filed as Bartz v. Anthropic PBC in the Northern District of California, resolves claims covering roughly 482,000 to 500,000 books and pays authors and publishers about $3,000 per work. More than 91% of eligible rights holders had filed claims by the time of approval, according to the settlement administrator.

The case set an early marker for how US courts treat AI training data. In a 2025 summary-judgment ruling, then-Judge William Alsup found that training AI models on copyrighted text is fair use, but held that Anthropic’s downloading and retention of pirated copies from sites such as Library Genesis into a “central library” infringed copyright. The case was reassigned to Martinez-Olguin in December 2025 after Alsup’s retirement.

Anthropic deputy general counsel Aparna Sridhar said the settlement follows that fair-use ruling.

The fair-use finding came at summary judgment in this case and does not settle the question for the industry; other suits against AI developers over training data are still moving through the courts. What the settlement does establish is a price for the piracy piece – acquiring copyrighted works through unauthorized channels – separate from the legality of training itself.