AI News Monitor

A federal judge ruled late Monday that Anthropic, the Amazon-backed artificial intelligence company, did not violate copyright law by using books to train its AI model Claude, delivering a significant victory to the tech industry in a closely watched legal battle.

In a decision that could shape the future of AI development, U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco found that Anthropic’s use of copyrighted material was “transformative” and constituted “fair use” under U.S. law. The ruling is among the first to address whether tech companies must compensate writers and publishers when using their works to train large language models.

“The purpose and character of using copyrighted works to train LLMs to generate new text was quintessentially transformative,” Judge Alsup wrote. “Like any reader aspiring to be a writer.”

The case was brought by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson, who accused Anthropic of building a “multibillion-dollar business by stealing hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books.” But the judge rejected their core argument, stating that AI models do not reproduce an author’s “identifiable expressive style” and instead create something new.

However, Judge Alsup allowed a separate claim to proceed, ordering a trial over whether Anthropic infringed copyrights by storing more than 7 million pirated books in a central library, even if they were not used for training. “That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for the theft,” he wrote. Damages in such cases can reach up to $150,000 per work.

The decision is a milestone in the broader legal fight over AI and intellectual property. Tech companies, including OpenAI and Meta, face lawsuits from authors, media organizations and artists who argue their works were used without permission or compensation. The industry contends that forcing payment for training data would stifle innovation.

Anthropic, which is also backed by Alphabet, said in court filings that its AI system studied books to “extract uncopyrightable information” and create “revolutionary technology.” Judge Alsup agreed, writing that the models aimed not to replicate books but to “turn a hard corner and create something different.”

Spokespeople for Anthropic and the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A trial on the remaining infringement claims is expected later this year.

The ruling provides early clarity on the limits of fair use in AI, but appeals and additional lawsuits are likely as courts grapple with how copyright law applies to rapidly evolving technology.