Overview

• U.S. District Judge William Alsup held that Anthropic’s use of copyrighted books to train its Claude model is “exceedingly transformative” and qualifies as fair use under U.S. law.
• Alsup ruled that storing over seven million pirated book copies in Anthropic’s “central library” constituted copyright infringement.
• A December jury trial will determine damages for the willful infringement, with potential penalties of up to $150,000 per work under statutory provisions.
• This is the first detailed federal ruling on fair use in generative AI cases and is expected to guide ongoing copyright lawsuits against other AI developers.
• While Anthropic argued that transformative AI training fosters creativity, the court rejected its reliance on pirated sources for building its library.