Anthropic AI Settles Lawsuit About Stealing Authors' Work

We're pretty much at the most important time in Hollywood's recent history. And really, for all creative people. AI companies are being tested in court for how much they're allowed to use their programs to feed on the ideas we created from nothing.

They trained their software on our stuff and now, they're dealing with lawsuits because of it. These early lawsuits set precedents for how all the other ones will be argued.

Today, we got an update in the Anthropic lawsuit, where authors alleged that the Amazon-backed company illegally downloaded their books to teach its AI system.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, a judge addressed whether AI companies are covered by the legal doctrine of fair use.

Here's the bad news for us creatives: The court found that Anthropic is on solid legal ground when using authors' works for training purposes, on the condition that the books were legally acquired. The judge's reasoning compared the AI to a human student who reads to learn and is then able to create entirely new works.

The judge ruled that Anthropic's use of copyrighted books for training its AI model constituted "fair use" because it was "transformative." However, the judge also found that Anthropic's method of acquiring those books—by downloading them from pirate sites—was a violation of copyright law. This left the door open for the authors to pursue a piracy case, which could have resulted in billions of dollars in damages for Anthropic.

That's the thing I think pisses me off the most. These companies are actually just stealing information to train instead of paying. And that precedent is actually important for us, because I think it gives anyone suing these companies a reason to look into HOW they got their info, which might be beneficial to us all.

I wish this had gone to court. The settlement avoids a potentially costly trial for Anthropic and could set a precedent for how similar cases are handled in the future, meaning that all these other companies settle lawsuits to prevent going bankrupt from lawsuits.

This case is just one of many legal challenges facing the AI industry.

We have stories about news publications, music publishers, and other copyright holders who have also filed lawsuits against AI companies for using their content without permission.

The outcome of these cases will have a profound impact on the future of AI and the creative industries.

So, we will try to keep you updated.

Let me know what you think in the comments.