Anthropic Settlement Update: Final Settlement Approved

On Tuesday, Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted final approval to the historic class action settlement in the Bartz v Anthropic copyright infringement lawsuit. At $1.5 billion, it’s the largest recovery ever in a copyright infringement suit, penalizing Anthropic for downloading, storing, and copying pirated datasets consisting of millions of illegally uploaded books in order to use them for AI training. (If you need a refresher, my past blog posts include a general overview of the settlement and the issues surrounding it and an April update.) Judge Martinez-Olguin’s ruling can be seen here. Top Takeaways Attorneys’ fees have been reduced. Class attorneys had requested 12.5% of the settlement fund, or $187.5 million, plus expenses of $2.5 million and a cost reserve of another $18 million (out of which the settlement administrator would be paid). Rather than a percentage-of-settlement, the judge chose to use a different method of calculation, reducing fees to $101.5 million; this…