{"id":706044,"date":"2026-07-22T22:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T22:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/706044\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T22:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T22:58:09","slug":"harry-potter-publisher-wins-payout-in-1-1bn-anthropic-ai-copyright-settlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/706044\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Potter publisher wins payout in \u00a31.1bn Anthropic AI copyright settlement"},"content":{"rendered":"

The publisher of Harry Potter is to receive a multimillion-pound payout over a copyright settlement between the AI <\/a>startup Anthropic and thousands of authors after using pirated copies of their works to train its Claude chatbot. <\/p>\n

Bloomsbury, which is home to book by bestselling novelists Sarah J. Maas and Susanna Clarke as well as JK Rowling, is a beneficiary of the $1.5bn (\u00a31.12bn) settlement.<\/p>\n

It said it had 14,087 titles listed within the settlement, with a proposed compensation of about $3,000 (around \u00a32,250) a title.<\/p>\n

The London-based company added that it expects to receive the money in instalments, potentially starting in the second half of this financial year, with the proceeds to be shared with authors.<\/p>\n

District Judge Araceli Mart\u00ednez-Olgu\u00edn said in a ruling on Monday that the class-action settlement provides “meaningful relief” to affected authors and publishers.<\/p>\n

About 91% of the more than 482,000 books covered by the settlement have been claimed by authors or publishers who are now due payment.<\/p>\n

Anthropic makes Claude AI. Credit: iStock<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs’ attorney Justin Nelson said the agreement represented “the largest known copyright recovery in history”, adding: “We look forward to making distributions to the class as promptly as possible.” <\/p>\n

US District Judge William Alsup granted preliminary approval for the settlement in San Francisco federal court last September before retiring.<\/p>\n

Last summer, Alsup issued a mixed ruling, finding that training AI chatbots on copyrighted books was not illegal but that Anthropic had wrongfully acquired millions of books through pirate websites.<\/p>\n

Subscribe free to our weekly newsletter<\/a> for exclusive and original coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox every Friday morning. <\/p>\n

Anthropic’s deputy general counsel, Aparna Sridhar, described that ruling as a landmark decision showing “that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law”.<\/p>\n

“We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we’re looking forward to bringing this matter to a close,” Sridhar said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Bestselling thriller writer Andrea Bartz first brought the lawsuit with two other authors in 2024.<\/p>\n

It is the first major settlement in dozens of AI copyright cases still making their way through the courts.<\/p>\n

Want a quick and expert briefing on the biggest news stories? Listen to our latest podcasts to find out What You Need To Know\u2026<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The publisher of Harry Potter is to receive a multimillion-pound payout over a copyright settlement between the AI…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-706044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}