Here’s a report from Kindlepreneur’s Dave Chesson about the recent $1.5 billion settlement with authors whose book the company scraped to build its AI model. Thanks to Chris Santilli Johnson for forwarding it to us.
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Anthropic, the company behind the Claude AI model, scraped hundreds of thousands of books from pirate sites. When the case went to court, the judge ruled that using pirated books isn’t fair use.
The result? About 465,000 books were identified as part of the case, and the rights holders of those books are now eligible for payments of around $3k per title.
But here’s what most people missed: Not every impacted author gets a check.
Only those with registered copyrights are eligible.
That means thousands of writers (even some whose books were copied by Anthropic) receive nothing.
You can check the official settlement website to see if your book is listed (and file a claim if it is) by clicking here.
So what can we learn from this? Well, three things:
- Automatic copyright isn’t enough. Yes, your book is protected the moment you write it. But without registration, you can’t collect statutory damages, and you’re invisible in cases like this settlement.
- Registration gives you proof. A registration certificate makes it easy to prove ownership in court (or in a settlement process) without endless back-and-forth.
- The earlier you register, the better. In the U.S., registering within three months of publication (or before infringement happens) gives you the strongest protection.
This is why we’ve updated our guide on how to copyright your book. It walks you through the process step by step, so you can make sure you’re covered.
Check it out here:
https://kindlepreneur.com/how-
Note: I’m not a lawyer, but the article was compiled and approved by an intellectual property attorney with 20+ years experience. Still, neither this email nor article should be taken as formal legal advice.
Whether or not your books were caught up in the Anthropic case, this is a wake-up call. Registration is the difference between being counted, and being left out.
And with AI being a thing in the courts, this might not be the last time this occurs.
Author
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