United States of America

Bartz et al. v. Anthropic PBC (United States of District Court N. D. California)

United States of America
United States of District Court N. D. California
23 June 2025
C 24-05417 WHA
Ongoing settlement
Copyright infringement
Generative AI (output); Large Language Models (LLMs); Foundation Models; AI Model Training; Text‑Generation Systems; General‑Purpose AI Models; Prompt‑Based Generation; Model Pretraining

Decision Summary

In June 2025, the court ruled that training AI on lawfully acquired books is fair use, but that downloading and keeping pirated books is not, certifying a class of affected copyright holders. The case settled in August 2025 for at l around $1.5 billion, resolving Anthropic’s past liability for pirated works only, with final approval and claims administration pending in 2026.

Authors