A group of writers has filed a new lawsuit against several major artificial intelligence companies, claiming that pirated copies of their books were used without permission to train AI systems. The lawsuit targets Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, Meta, xAI and Perplexity. Among the writers involved is Theranos whistleblower and Bad Blood author John Carreyrou.
This legal fight is not new. Earlier, another group of authors sued Anthropic over similar claims. In that case, a judge ruled that while it may be legal for AI companies to train models on copyrighted books, it is not legal to pirate those books in the first place. That decision led to a large settlement.
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Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement in that earlier case. Writers who qualify can receive around $3,000 each. However, many authors say this outcome is deeply unfair. They believe the settlement lets AI companies off too easily and does not properly address the harm done.
The new lawsuit argues that the settlement benefits AI companies more than creators. According to the filing, the proposed Anthropic settlement “seems to serve (the AI companies), not creators.”
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“LLM companies should not be able to so easily extinguish thousands upon thousands of high-value claims at bargain-basement rates, eliding what should be the true cost of their massive willful infringement,” the lawsuit says.
The outcome of this lawsuit could affect how AI companies use books and other copyrighted material in the future.
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