As reported by the New York Times, AI company Anthropic has settled a significant copyright lawsuit with 500,000 authors for a total of $1.5 billion. Each author will receive $3,000 for the illegal use of their published works in training AI models.

The lawsuit stems from allegations that Anthropic illegally downloaded authors’ books to enhance its AI model, Claude. Critics say that Anthropic’s practices “dilute the commercial market” for these authors by allowing others to generate content cheaply or freely using AI.

The settlement entails the highest payout ever recorded in a copyright case in the United States, though each author’s payment appears minimal compared to what they potentially could have earned. The claim asserts that the actual infringement was based on pirated material rather than the general act of utilizing copyrighted works for AI training, which has been deemed acceptable under fair use by courts in other contexts.

This case signals a growing trend of significant legal actions against AI companies regarding copyright misuse, marking a pivotal moment in the intersection of technology and intellectual property rights.