Bartz v. Anthropic: $1.5B settlement final approval
Confirmed
Importance: major (4 of 5)The takeaway
Cal.) granted final approval of the $1.5 billion class settlement in Bartz v.
Status
- Claim
Confirmed
- Our reporting
- High confidence
- Importance
- Major (4 of 5)
- Last verified
- 15 October 2026
Your AI and this story
- GPT-6 Astra81 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.520 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 4 Argon111 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.750 days after its cutoff
None of these four assistants can know about it. The closest, Claude Opus 5.5, stops 20 days before it.
Key facts
- Order: Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, N.D. Cal. No. 3:24-cv-05417-AMO, Dkt. 680, ‘Order granting final approval of class action settlement’, dated July 20, 2026, signed by Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín (the case had earlier been before Judge William Alsup)
- Works List: 482,460 works; as of April 16, 2026, 440,490 (91.3%) had been claimed; notice reached rightsholders of 482,374 works (99.98%) (Dkt. 680)
- Estimated payment about $3,000 per work, less costs and fees, which the court calls four times the statutory minimum (Dkt. 680; Authors Guild: four times the $750 minimum)
- 350 valid opt-outs covering 1,802 works; 54 objections or comments, all overruled (Dkt. 680)
- Release: no claims about AI outputs and no claims about conduct on or after August 25, 2025 (Dkt. 680)
- Fees: class counsel asked first for 20% and then 12.5% ($187.5M); the court awarded about 6.8% (~$101.56M), holding back 10% until a post-distribution accounting (Authors Guild)
- Background: in June 2025 Judge Alsup ruled that training Claude on books was fair use but that building a central library from pirated copies was not (Order on Fair Use, Dkt. 231); the settlement followed, with preliminary approval in Dkt. 437
- Not verified here: the Ninth Circuit appeals from the judgment (notices reported in August 2026; the docket page could not be fetched)
What happened
The authors’ class action against Anthropic ended with the court approving the settlement and entering judgment. The 23-page order confirms the preliminary-approval findings, overrules every objection (some from Italian publishers such as Garzanti and Salani), strikes objections from non-class members, and approves the claims and distribution plan run by JND. It cuts the fee request sharply. Court documents unsealed in the same case in January 2026 describe “Project Panama”, Anthropic’s programme to buy and scan print books (see the Nippan entry).
Why it matters
It is the largest copyright class settlement on record and sets a price of about $3,000 per pirated book for AI training data, while leaving untouched Judge Alsup’s 2025 ruling that training on lawfully acquired books is fair use. Other rightsholders (music publishers, opt-out authors) are suing Anthropic separately.
Sources
4 sources from 3 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
4 sources: 3 primary, 1 press
Primary
- Order granting final approval of the class settlement (Bartz v. Anthropic, Dkt. 680, July 20, 2026)storage.courtlistener.com, docs
- Bartz v. Anthropic: Order on Fair Use, Judge William Alsup (June 23, 2025, Dkt. 231)storage.courtlistener.com, docs
- CourtListener docket: Bartz v. Anthropic PBCcourtlistener.com, docs
Press
- Authors Guild: Court grants final approval of Anthropic copyright settlementauthorsguild.org, press
Changes
- Filed from order read on CourtListener; Authors Guild for fees