Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has scored a significant legal victory in a landmark copyright case that could shape the future of AI development. A U.S. federal judge ruled Monday that Anthropic’s use of copyrighted books to train its large language model Claude constitutes “fair use” under American copyright law.
The case, brought by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, accused Anthropic of unlawfully using their books without permission as part of its AI training dataset. While acknowledging that Anthropic did use the works without explicit consent, U.S. District Judge William Alsup determined that the AI company’s training method was “transformative” and aligned with the broader goals of copyright law — namely, to “enable creativity and foster scientific progress.”
“This is a big moment for AI companies,” an Anthropic spokesperson said, expressing satisfaction with the court’s decision. “The court recognized that our training approach is both innovative and consistent with copyright’s intent.”
However, the ruling was not a complete win for Anthropic. Judge Alsup found that the company’s storage of more than 7 million pirated books in what was described as a “central library” did not meet the standard of fair use. This aspect of the case was deemed to be a direct infringement of the authors’ copyrights.
The judge has scheduled a trial for December to determine the damages Anthropic must pay for that infringement.
The dual nature of the ruling highlights the complex and evolving relationship between artificial intelligence and intellectual property law. As more tech firms train AI systems on vast datasets — many of which include copyrighted content — courts are increasingly being asked to weigh the rights of creators against the promise of technological advancement.
Legal experts view the decision as a partial precedent that may influence ongoing and future lawsuits involving OpenAI, Google, Meta, and other AI developers.
The December trial will be closely watched, not only for its financial implications for Anthropic but also for the precedent it may set regarding how copyrighted materials can be lawfully used in AI development.
