Reddit has filed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, accusing the company of illegally scraping content from its platform to train its AI models. The complaint, lodged on Wednesday in San Francisco Superior Court, marks the latest legal clash between digital content platforms and AI developers over data usage rights.
According to Reddit, Anthropic trained its Claude chatbot on Reddit discussions without obtaining proper authorization or entering into a licensing agreement. The social media firm claims this was done despite public assurances from Anthropic that it had blocked its bots from accessing Reddit content.
The lawsuit quotes the Claude chatbot itself acknowledging it was “trained on at least some Reddit data,” and that it could not confirm whether that data had since been deleted. Reddit also cited internal data showing Anthropic’s bots had accessed or attempted to access its content over 100,000 times.
Reddit alleges Anthropic violated its user policy and profited “to the tune of tens of billions of dollars” by using the scraped data for commercial gain. The platform emphasized that other AI companies like Google and OpenAI had agreed to licensing deals, underscoring Anthropic’s refusal as a breach of industry norms.
“Anthropic refuses to respect Reddit’s guardrails and enter into a license agreement,” the complaint states, accusing the company of enriching itself while claiming to be an AI “white knight” committed to ethical practices.
Reddit Chief Legal Officer Ben Lee affirmed the platform’s support for an open internet but stressed the need for AI firms to adhere to “clear limitations” when using scraped content.
Anthropic, backed by tech giants including Amazon and Alphabet, denied the allegations. A company spokesperson said, “We disagree with Reddit’s claims and will defend ourselves vigorously.”
The lawsuit seeks punitive damages and an injunction preventing Anthropic from using Reddit content in its AI models. It comes shortly after Anthropic released its latest Claude models, Opus 4 and Sonnet 4, and as its annualized revenue reportedly hits $3 billion.
The case is Reddit Inc v Anthropic PBC, California Superior Court, San Francisco County, No. CGC-25-524892.
