Anthropic Settlement – Information

Over the last few days, a potential settlement has been announced in the class action litigation resulting from the unsanctioned use of hundreds of thousands of books. Mystery Writers of America is following the matter closely, and there are steps our members must take to be part of the settlement.

The terms of the agreement require Anthropic to pay $1.5 billion over the next two years to settle claims that it downloaded pirated books to train AI systems, in what is touted as the largest U.S. copyright settlement in history. The copyright is key here. Pirated titles must have a copyright, and we know some publishers have been inconsistent in registering their author’s work.

Key Settlement Details:

• Rights holders with qualifying books will receive approximately $3,000 per title, with multiple authors and publishers sharing in that amount.
• The settlement covers only past use; it doesn’t give Anthropic future rights to use pirated books.
• This is one of several ongoing lawsuits against AI companies. This is not the Authors Guild lawsuit against OpenAI—that case is still pending.

More detail may be found on the Author’s Guild website at this link: https://authorsguild.org/news/what-authors-need-to-know-about-the-anthropic-settlement

Thank you to longtime MWA Member Neil Plakcy who offers the following steps to determine the titles qualifying for the settlement and the quick steps to add them to the agreement.

Go to this site:

https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/

Enter your name to see which of your books have been copyrighted with the government.

Then go here:

https://www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/contact

Enter your information, including the list of titles. That should get you into the class with the correct information.