US judge grants final approval to Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement with authors over book training

What happened

• Final approval was entered on 22 July 2026 by US District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin; now-retired Judge William Alsup had initially approved the deal in September 2025.
• Anthropic will pay $1.5 billion into a non-reversionary fund, roughly $3,000 per qualifying work, in installments through September 2027, and must destroy the pirated books it downloaded.
• The settlement class covers more than 480,000 works downloaded from Library Genesis (LibGen) or Pirate Library Mirror (PiLiMi) with an ISBN or ASIN registered with the US Copyright Office.
• The court awarded plaintiffs' attorneys more than $101 million of the $187.5 million in fees they requested, plus service awards of up to $50,000 per named plaintiff.
• In June 2025, Judge Alsup ruled that training AI models on books qualified as fair use, and a trial on piracy damages had been scheduled for December 2025.
• The settlement resolves past claims through 25 August 2025 but does not release claims over what Anthropic's AI models generate; some authors opted out and have filed separate ongoing lawsuits.
• The case is Bartz, et al. v. Anthropic PBC, Case No. 3:24-cv-05417-WHA, in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Who is involved

Sources

1. stratnewsglobal.com — primary
2. topclassactions.com — party background
3. brookewarner.substack.com — party background
4. wrtv.com — party background