Anthropic says training fair-use ruling remains the law
AnthropicCompany statement through deputy general counsel Aparna Sridhar
Anthropic says it settled after a court ruled that training AI on books is fair use, and says that ruling remains the law.
Responding to
The book-training uses at issue in Bartz qualify as fair use.
“We reached this settlement in 2025, after the court’s landmark ruling that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law — which remains the law today”
Reporting
Reporting
Where this statement fits
Authors Guild disputes fair-use ruling on Anthropic's book training
Judge William Alsup's June 23, 2025 order in Bartz v. Anthropic held that Anthropic's use of books to train its AI models was fair use, and that scanning print books it had bought to replace them with digital copies was also fair use. It held that downloading pirated books to build a permanent central library was not fair use. Anthropic says the training ruling remains the law. The Authors Guild disputes it, arguing that the court gave too little weight to authors' licensing markets. Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín gave final approval on July 20, 2026 to a $1.5 billion class settlement covering books Anthropic downloaded from pirate sites. That approval is separate from the earlier fair-use analysis.
Source and context
Reporting
About this source
AP's report on the July 20, 2026 final approval quotes part of a written statement from Anthropic deputy general counsel Aparna Sridhar and says she made it on Friday, July 17.
Reporting
About this source
Reuters report on the July 20, 2026 final approval, republished by Insurance Journal. It quotes Anthropic deputy general counsel Aparna Sridhar's written statement in full.
Before the quotation
AP reported that Anthropic deputy general counsel Aparna Sridhar made this written statement on Friday, July 17, 2026. In their reports on the court's July 20 final approval of the settlement, AP quoted part of it and Reuters quoted the full sentence.
After the quotation
Sridhar added that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement had claimed their share of the payment.
How this statement is classified
The label describes this statement's response within the context above.
Why this label?
Anthropic defends its training use of books as fair use. The statement does not defend the pirated library that the settlement covers.
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More from this case
Read the full caseAuthors Guild rejects training fair-use holding
Authors Guild
“we disagree with the decision that using pirated or scanned books for training LLMs is fair use.”Read statement
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The Dispute Index. "Anthropic says training fair-use ruling remains the law". First published: 2026-10-15. Last updated: 2026-10-15. https://disputeindex.com/events/5765-anthropic-says-it-settled-after-a-court-ruled