Anthropic’s $1.5 billion copyright payout faces author

What happened

5 billion copyright settlement are raising concerns after receiving emails stating that publishers or literary agencies are claiming part, or in some cases all, of their settlement payments. The complaints, reported by TechCrunch, delve upon how publishers’ rights to individual books are being recorded under the settlement.

Poor-record keeping by the companiesVictoria Strauss, who runs the Writers Beware blog, said she had received complaints from authors falling into two main categories. In some cases, publishers were claiming works for which they no longer held rights because those rights had reverted to the author. In others, publishers sought 100 per cent of the payment despite being entitled to only 50 per cent.

Strauss cautioned against assuming the errors were deliberate, saying poor record-keeping could explain some of the problems. She also noted that some publishers had acknowledged mistakes and asked Anthropic to correct them. Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, similarly told The New York Times that she did not view the situation as publishers deliberately trying to take money from authors.

Authors also face payment claims from literary agenciesPublishers are also not the only parties seeking payments. Authors who believe their payments have been incorrectly allocated can dispute the claims. One important factor is when the rights to a book reverted to the author. Under the settlement, an author seeking the full $3,000 payment must have had the rights revert before August 10, 2022, the settlement’s specified ‘download date’.

Why it matters

Authors say some publishers have claimed works whose rights reverted to the writers years ago, while others appear to be seeking the full settlement amount despite being entitled to only half. Anthropic agreed last year to settle a class-action copyright lawsuit after a judge ruled that using copyrighted material to train AI models could qualify as fair use, while obtaining that material through piracy did not.

Under the agreement, authors of nearly 500,000 titles are eligible for $3,000 for each pirated work. For books that remain in print with a traditional publisher, the payment is split equally between the author and publisher. The issue has prompted authors to question claims being filed by publishers.

Mystery and thriller writer April Henry, for instance, said HarperCollins had claimed one of her books even though its rights had reverted to her at least 17 years ago. She also said she received a credit alert indicating that HarperCollins had been added as her employer, despite never having been one.

What to watch

Instead, she attributed the problems to poor record-keeping and the complexity of administering the settlement. Still, Strauss said the volume and similarity of complaints raised concerns that the problems could be more widespread than routine administrative errors. She described the reports she had received as only a small glimpse into a much larger process, but said the repeated errors suggested something potentially systemic.