Author wins copyright suit against Anthropic, receives only $6,200 personally

Published Jul 30, 10:45 AM UTC

Author Charles Graeber, along with Andrea Bartz and Kirk Wallace Johnson, won a class-action lawsuit against AI company Anthropic, resulting in a $1.5 billion settlement—one of the largest copyright infringement settlements ever. However, Graeber will personally receive only $6,200 ($3,100 per book) for two of his works used without authorization to train Anthropic's Claude chatbot. He told NPR that years of fighting the case, including travel and lost job opportunities, have left him 'much poorer.' The court ruled that Anthropic did not violate copyright by training on copyrighted books but was liable for using unauthorized copies. The authors plan to continue advocating for creators' rights as AI technology evolves, acknowledging that the 'genie is out of the bottle' with AI.