Anthropic agrees to pay $1.5B to settle lawsuit with book authors

983 points by acomjean 8 days ago

Also https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/09/05/anthrop..., https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat...

perihelions - 8 days ago

https://archive.ph/wugNc

aeon_ai - 8 days ago

To be very clear on this point - this is not related to model training.

It’s important in the fair use assessment to understand that the training itself is fair use, but the pirating of the books is the issue at hand here, and is what Anthropic “whoopsied” into in acquiring the training data.

Buying used copies of books, scanning them, and training on it is fine.

Rainbows End was prescient in many ways.

rchaud - 8 days ago

> Buying used copies of books, scanning them, and training on it is fine.
But nobody was ever going to that, not when there are billions in VC dollars at stake for whoever moves fastest. Everybody will simply risk the fine, which tends to not be anywhere close to enough to have a deterrent effect in the future.
That is like saying Uber would have not had any problems if they just entered into a licensing contract with taxi medallion holders. It was faster to just put unlicensed taxis on the streets and use investor money to pay fines and lobby for favorable legislation. In the same way, it was faster for Anthropic to load up their models with un-DRM'd PDFs and ePUBs from wherever instead of licensing them publisher by publisher.
- jimmaswell - 8 days ago
  
  > It was faster to just put unlicensed taxis on the streets and use investor money to pay fines and lobby for favorable legislation
  And thank god they did. There was no perfectly legal channel to fix the taxi cartel. Now you don't even have to use Uber in many of these places because taxis had to compete - they otherwise never would have stopped pulling the "credit card reader is broken" scam, taking long routes on purpose, and started using tech that made them more accountable to these things as well as harder for them to racially profile passengers. (They would infamously pretend not to see you if they didn't want to give you service back when you had to hail them with an IRL gesture instead of an app..)
  - 33MHz-i486 - 8 days ago
    
    i dont know that its such a great thing in the end. Uber/Lyft is 50-100% more expensive now than taxis were before. Theyre entrenched in different ways.
    
    jack_pp - 8 days ago
    
    Idk how it is in the US but in eastern Europe that's only true if surge is on and even so considering how shitty the quality of service was before Uber it's fine.
    
    mantas - 8 days ago
    
    And it’s still shitty. Uber/Bolt is like on par with 90s taxis. At least here there was a short attempt to make things better in early 2010s with nicer cars and trying to force drivers to be nicer. But then it was „disrupted“.
    
    kelnos - 8 days ago
    
    I far, far, far prefer Uber (or Lyft, in the US) wherever I am, over whatever local taxi service there is. Yes, the quality of cars varies a lot. Yes, you never know if you're going to get a quiet driver or a way-too-talkative one.
    But I know what I'm going to pay up-front, can always pay with a credit card (which happens automatically without annoying post-trip payment), the ride is fully tracked, and I can report issues with the driver that I have an expectation will actually be acted upon. And when I'm in another country where there are known to be taxis that scam foreigners, Uber is a godsend.
    Yes, pre-Uber taxis were expensive and crappy, and even if Uber is expensive now, it's not crappy; it's actually worth the price. And I'm not convinced Uber is even that expensive. We always forget to account for inflation... sure, we might today say, "that ride in a taxi used to cost $14, but in an Uber it costs $18". But that ride in a taxi was 15 years ago.
    
    BLACKCRAB - 7 days ago
    
    If you think that Uber deal was not thought out well it didn't get a chance when the drivers became AI autonomous and hacked the old drivers out of car. Then as they threw out the driver police hit there lights and let the AI go with a warning for throwing trash out but us passengers got raped by a feeldown seizure of mess to ride with the crazy driver not paid to controlled substances felony party too other passengers. So in response to nontraffic citation and no evidance because self incriminating with forced treatment to more meds but not allowed? What a choice red pill or six blue pills all illegal to have.
    
    Den_VR - 8 days ago
    
    The disruption worked in most cities I use uber in. It’s far more trustworthy to use uber.
    
    silisili - 8 days ago
    
    Uber did a great job convincing lay people that taxis were ripoffs and they were a good deal. For some time that was probably true.
    Now, I see people at the airport walk over to the pickup lot, joining a crowd of others furiously messing with their phones while scanning the area for presumably their driver.
    All the while the taxis waiting immediately outside the exit door were $2 more expensive, last time I checked.
    
    biztos - 7 days ago
    
    It helped that they started in places like San Francisco, where the taxi cartel was so absurdly terrible that you'd win fans just by showing up.
    I lived in SF when Uber started. We used to call Veteran's Cab because they were the only company that wouldn't ditch on the way to pick you up, but it was completely normal to wait more than an hour for a cab in the dark hinterlands of 24th and Dolores or the industrial wasteland of 2nd and Folsom. An hour during which you had to be ready to jump as soon as the car arrived. Everybody had at least one black-car driver's cell number for downtown use because if they happened to be free, you could at least get picked up.
    Uber would have had a religious following of fanpersons even if all they'd done was an estimated pickup time that was accurate to within 20 minutes.
    
    CSMastermind - 7 days ago
    
    In NYC, Vegas, and a few other places I take taxis because they're dense and work well there.
    Uber was a godsend for everyone living outside of like 4 metro areas in the US.
    
    GrumpyGoblin - 5 days ago
    
    Uber didn't have to convince anyone, taxis were ripoffs. It didn't even have to always do with money. Taxis asked people where they were going and drove off if it wasn't far enough was a significant issues. Taxis not picking up black people. Many taxis in my town were dirty and and the drivers were jerks or creepy or both. With protections built into law and no competition the industry didn't have to even try to cater to the customer.
    The taxi industry sealed it's own death warrant a long time ago. Ride sharing services solved a real problem at the right time. If that cost a bit more, it was well worth it. I won't take a taxi now unless I am forced to.
    
    davey48016 - 7 days ago
    
    Where I am, the taxi from the airport is about $5 more expensive during off peak, but it can be $20 cheaper during peak hours. I always take the taxi since it's right there, but I usually check the price on Lyft or Uber just to compare.
    
    darkhorse222 - 7 days ago
    
    I know how much my ride will be and I know it doesn't vary based on what happens along the way. L
    
    hobs - 7 days ago
    
    That's funny - ride fares change, and only in an Uber have I been kicked out of the car "because the app crashed" in the middle of an abandoned road, or had a very intoxicated person pick me up, or try to drive recklessly in hazardous conditions.
    I happily pay a premium for none of these things again.
    
    doug_durham - 7 days ago
    
    Not at any airport I've been to recently. I've never seen lines of taxis waiting at any airport in the last few years. There are empty taxi slots. People hail the taxi using an app and then wait for it to show up. Just like Lyft/Uber.
    
    kelnos - 8 days ago
    
    I mean, that seems pretty unfair, no, giving one set of transportation companies an arbitrary advantage over another? This sort of thing is exactly why Uber started in the first place: because taxis had unfair monopolistic advantages for no particular reason, and gave customers a poor experience, because they knew they didn't have to do better to keep their jobs.
    I have no idea what I'm going to get with those taxis waiting immediately outside the exit door. Even in my home country, at the airport next to my city, I have no idea. I know exactly what I'm getting with an Uber/Lyft, every time. That's valuable to me.
    I was just in another country a couple months ago, and when trying to leave the airport, I was confused where I'd need to go in order to get an Uber. I foolishly gave up and went for one of those "conveniently-waiting" taxis, where I was quoted a price up-front, in my home currency, that I later (after doing the currency conversion on the Uber price) realized was a ripoff. The driver also aggressively tried to get me to instead rent his "friend's car" rather than take me to the rental car place like I asked. And honestly I consider that lucky: he didn't try to kidnap me or threaten me in any way, but I was tense during the whole ride, wondering if something bad was going to happen.
    That sort of thing isn't an anomaly; it happens all the time to tourists in many countries.
    
    coliveira - 7 days ago
    
    There are many schemes nowadays on Uber cars. I know some stories in developing countries where people are robbed and even killed because they foolishly think that by getting a Uber this means a safe ride. In some countries a regular taxi is actually better regulated and safer than Uber.
    
    jart - 7 days ago
    
    In my home country (New York) the taxi mafia was harsh and cruel, but they always did a good job.
    
    freejazz - 7 days ago
    
    > unfair monopolistic advantages for no particular reason
    Is that true?
    
    ChrisMarshallNY - 8 days ago
    
    In the US, as well.
    I won't recount what recently happened to a friend in Milwaukee. It was an unpopular story (because the ripoff was Uber-based, and not the traditional taxi).
    There's bad actors in every industry. I have found that industries that get "entrenched," tend to breed the most bad actors.
    If anything turns into a "pseudo-monopoly," expect the grifters to start popping up. They'll figure out how to game the system.
    
    raxxorraxor - 6 days ago
    
    Depending on the country, they are paid more fairly as well, are insured etc.
    The Taxi mafia had to go but Uber and co. are still questionable benefactors.
    
    - 7 days ago
    
    [deleted]
    
    lazide - 7 days ago
    
    In India, most taxis I ran across at the airport were 50% more expensive - after haggling!
    
    repeekad - 8 days ago
    
    Did you remember to factor in well over 30% inflation in America in the past 5 years plus Uber Lyft initially losing money on rides to capture market share before they eventually had to actually breakeven?
    
    TeMPOraL - 8 days ago
    
    > plus Uber Lyft initially losing money on rides to capture market share before they eventually had to actually breakeven?
    That's typically considered to be somewhere between assholish and straight up illegal in most civilized economies.
    
    ghiculescu - 8 days ago
    
    What law is it breaking?
    
    Macha - 8 days ago
    
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing#Legal_aspect...
    
    ghiculescu - 8 days ago
    
    In all those countries what’s illegal is abuse of a monopoly, which is not what’s being discussed here. The parent cited Uber and Lyft when they first started. Nothing is illegal about startups undercutting established competitors.