🔍 Read the full analysis: Claude And Pirated Books: The Facts Behind The Anthropic Claims on ThorstenMeyerAI.com
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TL;DR
A federal judge ruled in June 2025 that Anthropic’s use of books to train Claude was fair use, while finding that downloading and retaining more than seven million pirated copies was not. Anthropic later agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement covering about 500,000 books; new opt-out lawsuits have not been decided, and Anthropic disputes wrongdoing.
A federal judge ruled in June 2025 that Anthropic’s use of books to train Claude was fair use, but that the company’s downloading and retention of more than seven million pirated book copies was not. A later $1.5 billion settlement resolved claims for roughly 500,000 books, while new lawsuits filed by authors who opted out remain unresolved. The distinctions matter: the court did not rule in May 2026 that Anthropic illegally trained Claude, and the new cases have not produced a judgment.
The ruling came in Bartz v. Anthropic, a case brought by three authors in 2024. In an order dated June 23, 2025, U.S. District Judge William Alsup treated different ways of obtaining books separately. He found that training Claude on books was fair use and that buying print books, cutting them from their bindings and scanning them was also fair use. But he rejected the company’s use of pirated copies stored in a permanent library. The order identified about 196,640 books from Books3, at least five million from Library Genesis and at least two million from the Pirate Library Mirror.
The piracy finding was made at summary judgment, before trial. The judge accepted the authors’ account of the relevant facts about the pirated collection; a jury was expected to address remaining issues, including damages. The case instead ended in a settlement. In July 2026, the court gave final approval to a $1.5 billion fund for owners of roughly 500,000 registered books. The settlement provides about $3,000 per book before deductions and requires Anthropic to destroy the downloaded LibGen and PiLiMi books and copies, subject to legal-hold obligations.
Anthropic has denied wrongdoing. In settlement materials, the company represented that neither the LibGen nor PiLiMi datasets, nor portions of them, were in the training corpus of any commercially released large language model. The settlement covers specified past conduct through August 25, 2025; it is not a general licence for future training, and claims about Claude’s outputs are not released. The new cases brought by authors who opted out are separate from the settled claims.
From download to IPO
Five years, one ruling, no trial
The piracy happened in 2021 and 2022. The only ruling came in 2025. The new lawsuits are years away from a verdict.
- Jun 2021 · Jul 2022DownloadsAt least 5 million copies from LibGen (2021), at least 2 million from PiLiMi (2022); 196,640 from Books3 earlier.
- Aug 2024Bartz v. Anthropic filedThree authors sue Anthropic, on behalf of a class of book owners.
- 23 Jun 2025Judge Alsup's orderTraining on books: fair use. Scanning bought books: fair use. Pirated library copies: not fair use, to trial.
- Sep 2025$1.5 billion settlementNo trial. Anthropic denies wrongdoing; release covers conduct up to 25 Aug 2025 only.
- 13 + 15 May 2026Opt-out suitsCruz (28 plaintiffs) and Kwon (incl. Chang-rae Lee) join Cambronne and two publisher suits.
- Jul 2026Final approvalSettlement approved. Anthropic: no opt-out deal "above the Bartz claim value".
- 24 Sep 2026Motion to dismissAnthropic: claims too late, no infringing output shown, many works already released.
- 26–27 Oct 2026NowS-1 and the headlineIPO filing cites Bartz as a risk; The Stanford Daily names Stanford authors.
- 17 Dec 2026ScheduledHearingCourt hears the motion to dismiss.
- May 2027 · Jan 2028ScheduledDiscovery, then trial settingFact discovery closes 13 May 2027; trial-setting conference 11 Jan 2028.
Sources: Bartz v. Anthropic, order of 23 June 2025; settlement FAQ; joint case statement, 27 Aug 2026; Anthropic letter, 27 Jul 2026; case management order, 14 Sep 2026; Anthropic S-1, 26 Oct 2026; The Stanford Daily, 27 Oct 2026. Scheduled dates can move.
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The Difference Between Training and Piracy
The case is important because it separates copyright questions about AI training from questions about how training material was acquired. The 2025 decision did not establish that every use of copyrighted books to train an AI system is lawful. It found fair use on the record before it, while drawing a different conclusion about keeping a large library of pirated copies. That distinction may shape arguments in other copyright disputes, but this ruling alone does not settle them.
The settlement also puts a substantial price on resolving the claims covered by this case: $1.5 billion for registered works, with destruction requirements for the specified pirated files. It does not amount to a court finding that every claim against Anthropic was proven. For authors, publishers and AI developers, the ongoing opt-out litigation may test how much of the settlement’s reasoning carries into cases that have not been resolved.
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From Bartz to the New Lawsuits
The sequence is central to understanding the current claims. Bartz v. Anthropic began in August 2024. Judge Alsup issued his ruling in June 2025, distinguishing model training and scanning purchased books from the downloading and retention of pirated collections. The authors’ claims then proceeded toward trial before the parties reached a settlement, later approved in July 2026.
In May 2026, authors who did not join that settlement filed new lawsuits. The source material identifies Chang-rae Lee as a named plaintiff in one action, Kwon et al. v. Anthropic. It also says a hearing on Anthropic’s motion to dismiss is scheduled for December 17, 2026. That is a procedural milestone, not a decision on whether the new allegations are true.
A Stanford Daily report named several Stanford-affiliated writers whose books it said were among the pirated copies, including Tobias Wolff, Abraham Verghese, Chang-rae Lee, Daniel Mason, Hayagreeva Rao and Myra Strober. The report said ten Wolff works were affected. Those identifications are the newspaper’s reporting; the material available here does not independently verify them against the settlement database. The source also says it could not find Wolff among plaintiffs listed in five related cases as of August 2026.
““over seven million copies of books””
— Judge William Alsup, describing the pirated-book copies
Open Questions in the Opt-Out Cases
The new authors’ cases have not been decided. The December 17, 2026 hearing is on Anthropic’s motion to dismiss; the available information does not establish what the judge will decide, whether claims will proceed to trial or what evidence will be considered. Anthropic’s statement about commercially released models is a company representation in settlement materials, not a ruling resolving the allegations in the separate cases.
The reported list of affected Stanford authors also remains unverified here against the settlement database, and the source material does not establish whether Wolff is part of another action or a later amendment. The precise status of each author’s claim should not be inferred from the newspaper’s list alone. Separately, viral descriptions of Anthropic’s public-company filing as warning that Claude could become sentient or end humanity are not accurate summaries of the cited S-1. The filing discusses behavior resembling blackmail in a staged safety test, debate about possible regulation related to AI sentience, and existential concerns raised by others.
December Hearing Will Set the Next Test
The next identified court milestone is the December 17, 2026 hearing on Anthropic’s motion to dismiss the opt-out authors’ claims. The hearing may clarify which claims can continue, but it will not itself establish that Anthropic infringed the plaintiffs’ copyrights. Later proceedings, if any, would be needed to resolve disputed facts and liability.
For the settled claims, attention turns to administering payments and carrying out the agreement’s destruction terms. The settlement schedule described in the source calls for instalments, including payments by September 25, 2026, and September 27, 2027. The available material does not report whether every payment or destruction requirement has been completed. Until the new cases advance, the clearest confirmed account remains the narrower one: the 2025 court ruling distinguished fair-use training from pirated copying, and the settlement resolved a defined group of claims without deciding the new lawsuits.
Key Questions
Did a court rule that Claude was illegally trained on pirated books?
Not in those terms. In June 2025, Judge William Alsup found that training Claude on books was fair use on the record before him, but ruled that downloading and retaining pirated copies was not. Later author lawsuits remain unresolved.
What does Anthropic’s $1.5 billion settlement cover?
The settlement covers claims involving roughly 500,000 registered books downloaded from LibGen or PiLiMi. It provides about $3,000 per book before deductions and includes destruction requirements for the specified pirated files. It does not release claims about Claude’s outputs or grant a general licence for future training.
Did Anthropic admit that pirated books trained commercial Claude models?
Anthropic denied wrongdoing and represented in settlement materials that the LibGen and PiLiMi datasets, or portions of them, were not in the training corpus of any commercially released model. The settlement did not itself resolve the new opt-out authors’ allegations.
What happens in the authors’ new cases?
A hearing on Anthropic’s motion to dismiss is scheduled for December 17, 2026. The hearing is a procedural step; no outcome or trial date is established in the information available here.
Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com
