Authors whose works are covered by Anthropic鈥檚 $1.5 billion copyright settlement are reporting that publishers and literary agencies have filed claims against their payments, sometimes for works the authors say they fully control. The settlement, which received final court approval in July, followed a ruling that training AI on copyrighted material is legal under fair use but that pirating such material is not. Under the deal, authors of nearly 500,000 titles are eligible for $3,000 per pirated work, with a 50-50 split between author and publisher if the book remains in print with a traditional publisher. Authors who self-published, or whose rights reverted after their book went out of print, are supposed to receive the full amount.
Complaints have surfaced on social media and author forums. Mystery writer April Henry said on social media that HarperCollins claimed one of her books that she says reverted to her at least 17 years ago, and that the same day she received a credit alert listing HarperCollins as her employer, which she said was false. The blog Writers Beware, run by Victoria Strauss, said it has collected complaints falling into two main patterns: publishers claiming money for works they no longer hold rights to, and publishers seeking the entire payment when they are only owed half.
Strauss said she is reluctant to attribute the issues to deliberate wrongdoing, given that poor recordkeeping could explain many of the errors, and she noted that some publishers have already acknowledged mistakes and asked Anthropic to correct them. Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger told The New York Times she does not view the situation as a coordinated grab by publishers and does not believe they are trying to harm authors, describing it instead as the likely result of messy records and a confusing claims process. Strauss also cautioned that the reports she has seen represent only a small sample of the total claims, but she added that the volume of similar complaints over a short period suggests the problems may be systemic rather than routine glitches.
Beyond publishers, Strauss said authors have complained that literary agencies are also seeking a cut of settlement payments. She noted that agents are not rightsholders in the books they sell, making those claims surprising. Author Courtney Milan, the pen name of former law clerk and law professor Heidi Bond, posted on Bluesky that some agents appear to be trying to claim percentages from the settlement, and she said she does not believe they should do so.
Milan and the Authors Guild have shared details on how authors can dispute their payment allocations. One complication involves the timing of rights reversion: for an author to claim 100 percent of a payment for a book, the rights must have reverted before August 10, 2022, which the settlement treats as the download date for the pirated material. Authors affected by the claims are being encouraged to check their payment status and file disputes where they believe a claim is invalid.
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