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# Judge Approves a $1.5B Anthropic Settlement Over  Books Used to Train Claude
- URL: https://broadbandbreakfast.com/judge-approves-a-1-5b-anthropic-settlement-over-books-uzed-to-train-claude/
- Published: 2026-07-22T13:22:06.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-18T21:48:59.000Z
- Description: The case began when bestselling novelist Andrea Bartz and two other authors filed the suit in 2024.
- Author: Associated Press
- Tags: Andrea Bartz, Copyright, AI, #with-siderail, Anthropic, AP, Araceli Martínez-Olguín, Justin Nelson, William Alsup, Aparna Sridhar

SAN FRANCISCO, July 22, 2026 (AP) — A federal judge has approved a $1.5 billion [copyright settlement](https://apnews.com/article/anthropic-copyright-authors-settlement-training-f294266bc79a16ec90d2ddccdf435164?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com) in which artificial intelligence company Anthropic will pay thousands of authors about $3,000 per book after using pirated copies of their works to train its Claude chatbot.

District Judge **Araceli Martínez-Olguín** said in a Monday ruling that the class-action settlement provides “meaningful relief” to affected authors and publishers.

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About 91% of the more than 482,000 books covered by the ruling have been claimed by authors or publishers who are now due payment.

Plaintiff attorney **Justin Nelson** said in a statement that the settlement was "the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible.”

U.S. District Judge **William Alsup** issued the preliminary approval in San Francisco federal court last September and has since retired. Alsup had dealt the case a [mixed ruling](https://apnews.com/article/anthropic-ai-fair-use-copyright-pirated-libraries-1e5cece51c2e4bd0bb21d94de2abb035?ref=broadbandbreakfast.com) last summer, finding that training AI chatbots on copyrighted books wasn’t illegal but that Anthropic wrongfully acquired millions of books through pirate websites.

Anthropic's deputy general counsel, **Aparna Sridhar**, highlighted that ruling Friday as a landmark showing “that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law.”

“We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we’re looking forward to bringing this matter to a close,” Sridhar said in a written statement.

Bestselling thriller novelist **Andrea Bartz** first brought the suit with two other authors in 2024\. It's the first major settlement in dozens of AI copyright lawsuits that are still working their way through courts.

*This article was written by the Associated Press.*