Well, this is one of the drawbacks of AI. It is a company that acts illegally to train AI delivery. If you are writing a book used to train Anthropic’s AI program and can check if this is true, by visiting the website below (click on the headline) you will earn up to $3,000 per book, providing that the book is copyrighted in the US.
Apparently, humanity downloaded many books from pirated sites and, knowing it was illegal, used it to train AI programs. For more information, see the NYT article at the bottom.
So yesterday a friend sent me this notification. I would like to make the author recognize this as a way to stop this piracy.
Except for the settlement website here:
What is the settlement?
The settlement settles a class action lawsuit brought against humanity regarding the use of a company allegedly suspected of a Pirate book to train AI models.
The plaintiffs allege that humanity protected the copyright by downloading books from the Library’s Genesis (Libgen) and Pirate Library Mirror (Pilimi). Humanity denies these claims. The court did not decide who was right. Instead, both sides agreed to settle the matter to avoid more lawsuits.
What is the current situation for the settlement?
The settlement manager is notifying people about the settlement. Class members can search the book in the list of works and submit a claim.
On September 25, 2025, the court granted initial approval of the settlement. The court will then hold a fair hearing, resolve the appeal and make a final decision.
What benefits does the settlement offer?
If approved, the settlement will provide cash payments to class members who file valid and timely claims. The Settlement Fund includes approximately $3,000 per work, before deducting costs, fees and expenses, as explained below.
Reconciliation also calls for anthropology to destroy all books that humanity has downloaded from the Libgen or Pilimi dataset, as well as copies of those books.
What fees and expenses will be paid by the Settlement Fund?
Under the settlement, humanity agreed to establish a $1.5 billion settlement fund. The settlement fund is evenly divided based on the number of work that is valid for which the claim is filed.
The Settlement Fund is also used to pay notices and administrative fees related to the settlement, attorney’s fees and expenses, and class service awards.
Of course, we checked whether this was kosher and many sources verified it. This is an article from NYT. Click to read or find archived articles here.
Excerpt from NYT:
In the Landmark Settlement, the leading artificial intelligence company Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to the author and publisher group after the judge determined that millions of copyrighted books had been illegally downloaded and saved.
The settlement is the largest payment in the history of US copyright cases. Humanity pays 500,000 authors $3,000 per work.
The agreement is a turning point in the ongoing battle between AI companies and copyright holders that span more than 40 lawsuits nationwide. Experts say the agreement will open up more tech companies’ ways of paying rights holders through court decisions and settlements or licensing fees.
“It’s huge,” said Chad Hummel, a trial lawyer at McKool Smith, a law firm that is not involved in the case. “This will cause generative AI companies to sit and pay attention.”
The agreement allows copyrighted songs, movies and other materials to be shared free of charge online, reminiscent of the early 2000s when a court ruled that file sharing services such as Napster and Grokster were infringed by the rights holders.
“This is a Napstar moment in the AI industry,” said Cecilia Ginity, an intellectual property lawyer who is now the CEO of GC AI, an artificial intelligence startup.
The settlement comes after a decision by Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in June. In summary judgment, the judges sided humanity’s allies, the maker of online chatbot Claude, in a critical way. Most notably, when humanity acquired a legally copyrighted book, it was determined by law that the book allowed the book to use it to train AI technology.
. . . . Humanity illegally acquired millions of books through online libraries such as Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror, which many high-tech companies used to complement the vast amount of digital text needed to train AI technology. When humanity downloaded these libraries, the judge ruled, and its executives knew they contained pirated books.
Humanity may have purchased books from many sellers, the judge said, but instead preferred to “steal” them to avoid by Dario Amodei, the company’s chief executive officer, known in court documents as “legal/practical/business slogs.” Companies and individuals who knowingly infringe copyrights can face up to $150,000 in damages per job than those who don’t know they are violating the law.
. . The judge determined that the author had the cause to bring humanity to hear the pirated book, and the two sides decided to settle it.
“This settlement sends a strong message to AI companies and creators that it’s wrong to take copyrighted works from these pirate websites,” said Justin A. Nelson, the lawyer for the author who filed the lawsuit against humanity.
As part of the settlement, Anthropic said it did not build published AI technology using pirated works. The settlement also gives others the right to sue humanity if they believe that the company’s technology is replicating the work without proper approval. Humanity has also agreed to remove any pirated works that they downloaded and saved.
. . . Even if the court finds training in AI systems with copyrighted materials is being used fairly, the widespread use of online libraries such as Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror could force many AI companies to pay the rights owner more than pirated works, Hummel said.
It’s easy to check it out by entering your name or book name on the first site above. This is part of what I spew when I give my name.
So I submitted a request to each book. Humanity argues that its copyright infringement is “fair use,” but the principle usually applies to using only small works (illicitly acquired books) rather than the entire book. Their lawyers should have told them to just buy a book!
