Amazon-backed startup agrees to pay $1.5 billion to authors for using pirated books to train AI, says: We remain committed to…

AI startup Anthropic has agreed to pay at least $1.5 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit with a group of authors. The settlement, which was filed this week, addresses claims that the Amazon and Google-backed AI startup illegally used the authors’ books to train its AI models. The agreement includes a payment of approximately $3,000 per book, plus interest, and requires Anthropic to destroy the datasets containing the pirated material. Both publishers and AI companies have closely watched this settlement as a potential benchmark for copyright infringement in the AI era. If approved, it would be the largest publicly reported copyright recovery in history. The case highlights the ongoing legal challenges faced by AI companies over the use of copyrighted material to train their systems. In a statement to Bloomberg, an Anthropic spokesperson said: “We remain committed to developing safe AI systems that help people and organisations extend their capabilities, advance scientific discovery, and solve complex problems.”