Authors say publishers overstate their cut of Anthropic settlement

Authors receiving payments from Anthropic’s $1.5 billion copyright settlement say they’ve gotten a second, less welcome notice this week: emails telling them someone else, often their publisher, has also filed a claim on the same payment.

Anthropic settled the class action last year after a judge ruled that training AI models on copyrighted books is legal under fair use, but that pirating those books to build a training dataset was not. The settlement received final court approval in July. Under its terms, authors of nearly 500,000 titles are paid $3,000 for each pirated work. If a book is still in print with a traditional publisher, that payment splits 50-50 between author and publisher. If the book was self-published, or the publisher let it go out of print and reverted the rights, the author is owed the full amount.

Some authors say publishers are claiming money they’re no longer entitled to. Mystery and thriller writer April Henry wrote that HarperCollins claimed a share of one of her books despite the rights having reverted to her at least 17 years ago, adding that the publisher was also, incorrectly, listed as her employer on a credit alert the same day.

A pattern, not just glitches

At the blog Writers Beware, Victoria Strauss said complaints have fallen into two groups: publishers claiming books whose rights already reverted, and publishers claiming a full 100% payment when they’re entitled to only half. Strauss said she’s “reluctant to attribute to malice what can be plausibly explained by poor recordkeeping,” noting some publishers have already told authors it’s a mistake and asked Anthropic to correct it. Still, she said the volume of nearly identical reports over just two days suggests something “much more widespread and systemic” than routine errors, while cautioning that what she’s seen is still just “a peek through a small crack in a massive wall.”

Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger told The New York Times she doesn’t view the errors as a deliberate “grab by the publishers” or an attempt to “screw any author over,” pointing instead to bad recordkeeping and a confusing claims process.

Publishers aren’t the only outside party filing claims. Strauss said literary agencies have also sought a cut of payments, despite agents not holding rights in the books they represent. Author Courtney Milan, who writes under a pen name, put it more bluntly on Bluesky: “Apparently some agents are trying to claim percentages on the Anthropic settlement, and I do not REMOTELY think they should do this.”

Milan and the Authors Guild have circulated guidance on disputing incorrect claims. One detail authors need to check: rights must have reverted before August 10, 2022, the settlement’s designated “download date,” for an author to qualify for the full $3,000 payment rather than a 50-50 split.