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AI Firm Anthropic Hit With Class Action Lawsuit by Authors

By  |  August 20, 2024

A new class action lawsuit has been filed in a California federal court against the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, marking another significant legal battle in the ongoing debate over the use of copyrighted material to train AI systems. The lawsuit was brought by three authors who allege that their books, along with hundreds of thousands of others, were unlawfully used to train Anthropic’s AI-powered chatbot, Claude.

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    According to Reuters, the complaint was filed on Monday by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson. They claim that Anthropic utilized pirated versions of their works, as well as numerous others, to enhance Claude’s ability to generate human-like responses to prompts. This lawsuit adds to the growing list of legal challenges faced by technology companies over the training data used for their generative AI models, which include similar complaints from visual artists, news organizations, and music labels.

    This lawsuit is not the first of its kind against Anthropic. Last year, music publishers filed a case against the company, accusing it of using copyrighted song lyrics without permission to train its AI system. The new complaint from the authors is the second major legal action targeting the firm, highlighting the increasing scrutiny on how AI companies source the vast amounts of data required to develop their models.

    The authors involved in the case assert that Anthropic has “built a multibillion-dollar business by stealing hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books.” The complaint specifically mentions that the plaintiffs’ works were part of a dataset comprising pirated books that were allegedly used to train Claude. The lawsuit seeks monetary damages, though the exact amount is unspecified, and also requests a court order to permanently prevent Anthropic from continuing to use the plaintiffs’ copyrighted material.

    Anthropic, which has received significant financial backing from major investors such as Amazon, Google, and former cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, is now facing increased legal pressure as copyright holders seek to protect their intellectual property from what they view as unauthorized use by AI companies.

    As the legal landscape surrounding AI continues to evolve, this case, like others before it, could set important precedents for how generative AI systems are developed and the extent to which companies must obtain permission from content creators before using their works as training data.

    Source: Reuters