Anthropic settled a copyright class action suit last year after a judge ruled that training AI models on copyrighted material is legal under fair use doctrine, but pirating that material is not. The settlement received final approval in July, allowing payments to move forward for authors of nearly 500,000 titles at $3,000 per pirated work. Under the terms, payments are split 50-50 between author and publisher for in-print works, but authors receive the full amount for self-published books or those with reverted rights.
Authors are reporting on social media that publishers appear to be claiming more than their fair share of settlement payments. Mystery and thriller author April Henry posted that HarperCollins claimed a book whose rights had reverted to her at least 17 years ago. Victoria Strauss of the Writers Beware blog said complaints generally fall into two categories: publishers seeking payment for works with reverted rights, and publishers claiming 100% when only entitled to 50%.
Both Strauss and Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger said they don't believe this represents intentional misconduct, instead attributing it to poor recordkeeping and a confusing settlement process. However, Strauss noted that the unusually high volume of reports and the repetition of identical errors suggest systemic rather than routine issues. Literary agencies are also making claims, which Strauss called surprising since agents are not rightsholders in the books they represent.