September 22, 2025 (San Francisco) — The Anthropic class plaintiffs in Bartz et al. v. Anthropic PBC, No. 3:24-cv-05417-WHA (N.D. Cal.) today filed an extensive package of materials describing “an exhaustive notice process along with a streamlined, fair, and careful claims process” they propose to use if the agreement receives preliminary approval from the Court. The proposal is supported by a wide array of copyright owners—from various author groups to publishers to the named class representatives themselves.

The product of round-the-clock efforts over the last several weeks, the plan as submitted to the Court reflects extensive, hands-on participation from all three class representatives, working with Class Counsel in consultation with stakeholders and experts from across the author, publishing, and claims administration communities and is supported by 16 separate sworn declarations. It responds in detail to questions raised by Judge Alsup at the first hearing on preliminary approval, building on well-established class action precedents to ensure fairness and due process for all members of the class.

As the brief states, the “goals in proposing this plan of notice and distribution were to make a process that (1) will result in a high claims rate that is efficient for claimants; (2) respects pre-existing contractual relationships; and (3) is consistent with due process and this Court’s guidance.”

All three Class Representative Plaintiffs filed declarations with the court describing their personal involvement in the crafting and development of this plan.

Plaintiff Andrea Bartz, the New York Times bestselling author of five thrillers including We Were Never Here, said: “The works included in this case represent hundreds of millions of hours of labor and immeasurable dedication, creativity, vulnerability, and grit from both authors and publishers. I strongly support this settlement and, in the coming months, I’m committed to helping class members, including my fellow authors, understand the settlement and why it’s such a critical step for those of us who believe that Anthropic violated our copyrights…. Together, authors and publishers are sending a message to AI companies: You are not above the law, and our intellectual property isn’t yours for the taking.”

Plaintiff Charles Graeber, award winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder and The Breakthrough: Immunotherapy and the Race to Cure Cancer, said: “[W]hen I heard about Anthropic’s piracy, I immediately understood the threat that unchecked piracy posed to those [copyright] protections, and the harm already done to myself and many thousands of others who depend on them. I immediately called, offering to join this case. If I could help, I wanted to. . . . Whatever my previous deadlines, there was no case but this civil case; my top job now was to represent all stakeholders in this critical class action to the best of my ability. This responsibility continues to be an honor, whatever it takes.”

Plaintiff Kirk Wallace Johnson, journalist and author of The Fishermen and the Dragon: Fear, Greed, and a Fight for Justice on the Gulf Coast, The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century, and To Be A Friend Fatal: The Fight to Save the Iraqis America Left Behind and founder of The List Project, a nonprofit that has helped resettle over 2,500 Iraqi refugees, said: “This settlement marks an important moment for the legal and moral framework that has bound us to each other since we started telling each other stories: that it’s wrong to steal; that the system of justice protects us from those that ignore it; and that we don’t have to sacrifice everything we once valued on the altar of big tech.”

A joint declaration of not-for-profit author organizations including Novelists, Inc., Romance Writers of America, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and The Authors Guild states that these groups “support the settlement” including the proposed Notice and Allocation Plan, which they call “fair, reasonable, and adequate.” These experts specifically identified the importance of a simplified, one-step process allowing individual authors to file their own claims and the availability of a non-mandatory default 50/50 split, rooted in industry norms and practices reflected in most trade and university authors’ contracts.

Maria Pallante, President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers, filed a declaration supporting the settlement and describing robust consultation with publishing organizations including the Association of University Presses, the Independent Book Publishers Association, a number of international associations (including the International Publishers Association and the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers), and religious publishing groups (including the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association and Protestant Church-Owned Publishers Association). Ms. Pallante stated “I believe that the settlement as presented is beneficial to all class members… Beyond the monetary terms, the proposed settlement provides enormous value in sending the message that artificial intelligence companies cannot unlawfully acquire literary works from shadow libraries or other pirate sources to use as the building blocks for their businesses.”

The filing describes in detail the components of a robust outreach plan for notice, deploying US email, email, social media, publication and digital targeting, and trade group/peer to peer outreach to reach potential members of the class. Author and publisher groups in the United States as well as Canada and the United Kingdom also have agreed to distribute notice to their members.

It also describes a transparent allocation plan that responds to Judge Alsup’s comments about works with multiple claimants and the need to respect individual contracts by putting in place a default, non-mandatory allocation offering a fair, industry-standard 50/50 author/publisher split for most works (not including educational works where there is no sufficiently widespread standard split and splits will be determined case by case) but also allowing any claimant to decline the default split and engage in a bespoke process to allocate payment for their work.

The Court will consider the plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary approval of the settlement at a hearing this Thursday, September 25, 2025, in San Francisco.

More information is available at www.AnthropicCopyrightSettlement.com.

Agreement Would Result in First Major Payout to Creators Challenging AI Exploitation of their Work, Believed Largest Recovery Ever in a US Copyright Case

On September 5, 2025, Plaintiffs in the Bartz et al. v. Anthropic PBC, No. 3:24-cv-05417-WHA (N.D. Cal.), literary piracy lawsuit today announced the terms of a landmark settlement requiring Anthropic to pay $1.5 billion to rightsholders whose books were downloaded by Anthropic from the notorious pirated databases “Library Genesis” (“LibGen”) and “Pirate Library Mirror” (“PiLiMi”) – and who otherwise qualify as members of the “LibGen & PiLiMi Pirated Books Class” previously certified by US District Judge William Alsup.

Under the terms of the proposed settlement, Anthropic will pay approximately $3,000 per class work. The case was originally filed by authors Andrea Bartz, Kirk Wallace Johnson, and Charles Graeber. The settlement is subject to the approval of the court, where a hearing on preliminary approval is scheduled for September 8th, 2025.

Believed to be the largest publicly reported recovery in the history of US copyright litigation, the massive payout sends a powerful message of accountability to AI developers who torrented copyrighted works from illegal pirated websites to train AI models. Anthropic’s acquisition and use of books from these websites, illegal websites that have been repeatedly shut down by law enforcement and the courts, was made public for the first time as a result of this action.

This settlement gives hope to creators of every kind including the writers, musicians, artists, journalists, and others seeking to enforce creators’ rights in dozens of other pending cases.

“Piracy harms those who devote their lives to writing and publishing books that benefit us all, and companies that exploit piracy and endanger the creative industries must be accountable,” said Co-Lead plaintiffs’ Rachel Geman of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP.

While the exact size of the final settlement class is being finalized, based on the current record and available information regarding the works covered by the settlement, several facts are clear:

• Anthropic will pay $1.5 billion plus interest into a settlement fund, equating to approximately $3,000 for each work covered by the settlement. We anticipate approximately 500,000 works in the class. To the extent Anthropic adds works that bring the total list above 500,000, it will pay an additional $3,000 per work. Depending on the number of claims submitted, the final figure per work could be higher.
• The settlement only releases claims based on past acts – it does not give Anthropic a license or permission for future AI training and it does not release any claims that arise after August 25, 2025.
• The settlement does not release any claims – past or future – based on the output of AI models. And Anthropic certifies in the agreement that it did not use materials from LibGen or PiLiMi in any commercial models.
• The settlement only covers works from the class list. Authors retain all rights and legal claims regarding any books not on the settlement works list.
• As part of the settlement, Anthropic has agreed to destroy the original files of works torrented/downloaded from Library Genesis or Pirate Library Mirror, and any copies that originate from the torrented copies

The resolution was negotiated in consultation with key stakeholders from the author and publisher communities.

President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers Maria Pallante said “I believe that settlement as presented is beneficial to all class members and I am hopeful that the settlement will receive wide support from copyright owners. Beyond the monetary terms, the proposed settlement provides enormous value in sending the message that Artificial Intelligence companies cannot unlawfully acquire content from shadow libraries or other pirate sources as the building blocks for their models.”

The CEO of the Authors’ Guild Mary Rasenberger praised the agreement as “an excellent result for authors, publishers, and rightsholders generally, sending a strong message to the AI industry that there are serious consequences when they pirate authors’ works to train their AI, robbing those least able to afford it.”

Consistent with the Court’s rulings in this case, the settlement class includes legal and beneficial owners of copyrights in books downloaded by Anthropic from Library Genesis or Pirate Library Mirror, and whose works were registered within five years of initial publication and prior to Anthropic’s download.

Co-lead class counsel appointed by the court are Justin Nelson, Susman Godfrey LLP and Rachel Geman, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP.

Authors and rightsholders may visit AnthropicCopyrightSettlement.com, which gives potential class members an option to provide contact information to Class Counsel. In the coming weeks, and if the court preliminarily approves the settlement, the website will provide to find a full and easily searchable listing of all works covered by the settlement and information for class members about their options and rights regarding the settlement.

The court is scheduled to hold a hearing on the parties’ Unopposed Motion for Preliminary Approval of Settlement on Monday, September 8, and may schedule a final approval hearing for 2026. The settlement cannot take effect until court approval.

For more information regarding the settlement including a full description of the settlement class and claim requirements, visit AnthropicCopyrightSettlement.com.

A federal judge has appointed Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP and Susman Godfrey LLP to serve as Co-Lead Class Counsel in the class action lawsuit against AI company Anthropic PBC for large-scale copyright infringement. The Class’ case is headed to trial in December.

The certified class includes legal or beneficial owners of the exclusive right to reproduce copies of any copyright registered book with an ISBN or ASIN number that Anthropic downloaded from pirate websites LibGen or PiLiMi. The lawsuit seeks statutory damages and injunctive relief to prevent further unauthorized use of authors’ works.

In its ruling, the Court noted that the case “exemplifies the classic litigation that should be certified as a representative action,” and characterized Anthropic’s conduct as “Napster-style downloading” of copyrighted works that “can and should be proven on a classwide basis” at trial.

For more information, please contact Rachel Geman at rgeman @ lchb.com.

Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP and Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard LLP announce the filing of a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of prominent authors including David Baldacci, Mary Bly, Michael Connelly, Sylvia Day, Jonathan Franzen, John Grisham, Elin Hilderbrand, Christina Baker Kline, Maya Shanbhag Lang, Victor LaValle, George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, Douglas Preston, Roxana Robinson, George Saunders, Scott Turow, and Rachel Vail, as well as The Authors Guild itself, against OpenAI seeking redress under the Copyright Act for OpenAI’s flagrant and harmful infringements of Plaintiffs’ registered copyrights in written works of fiction.

The class action lawsuit alleges that OpenAI copied the plaintiffs’ works wholesale, without permission or consideration, then fed the plaintiffs’ copyrighted works into their ‘large language models’ or ‘LLMs,’ algorithmic systems designed to output human-seeming text responses to users’ prompts and queries.  The suit includes claims for direct copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. section 501, as well as vicarious and contributory copyright infringement, and injunctive relief in the form of a fair licensing regime as well as statutory and other damages.

“Without plaintiffs’ and the proposed class’ copyrighted works, Defendants would have a vastly different commercial product,” stated Lieff Cabraser partner Rachel Geman, co-counsel for plaintiffs and the proposed class. “Defendants’ decision to copy authors’ works, done without offering any choices or any compensation, threatens the role and livelihood of writers as a whole.”

Scott Sholder, Cowan, DeBaets partner and co-counsel for plaintiffs and the proposed class, added, “Plaintiffs don’t object to the development of generative AI, but the defendants had no right to develop their AI technologies with unpermitted use of the authors’ copyrighted works. defendants could have ‘trained’ their large language models on works in the public domain or paid a reasonable licensing fee to use copyrighted works.”

Read a copy of the filed complaint.

About Lieff Cabraser

Among the largest law firms in the U.S. representing only plaintiffs, Lieff Cabraser continues its 50+ year commitment to corporate accountability; promoting fair competition and business practices; safeguarding product safety; protecting our environment; securing justice for consumers, employees, patients, investors, and business owners; ensuring our rights to privacy; and upholding the civil rights of citizens worldwide. Learn more at 144.202.114.179.

About Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard LLP

For more than three decades, Cowan, DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard LLP has provided legal counsel to leading media, art, technology, and entertainment clients, from individual creators, to corporations, associations, and non-profit organizations. See cdas.com for more information.

Source/Contact

Rachel Geman
Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP
212 355-9500
rgeman@lchb.com

The suit was originally filed in 2014, and alleged that Nike paid $15,000 in 1985 to use his iconic photo for two years and only in certain situations. As detailed in the lawsuit, Renmeester notes the sports apparel giant continued to use his photo image as a logo and in ongoing worldwide marketing campaigns. In 2015, a district judge dismissed the case, ruling the logo did not resemble the photo enough to constitute copyright infringement. In late 2015, Rentmeester appealed the ruling to the Ninth Circuit.

The American Society of Media Photographers and the National Press Photographers Association now stand with Rentmeester in arguing that Nike’s use of the photo does violate copyright law, and in challenging the Ninth Circuit ruling.

“Leaving this area of law jumbled and confused with conflicting opinions would chill the creation of new works and give the green light to infringers the world over,” the photography groups said in their amicus brief. “These creators need clarity.”

Read the full article here on Law360’s site (subscription).