The class action lawsuit filed against Anthropic charging the AI company with illegally using pirated books to train its large language models continues to unfold at a rapid pace. On July 31, Anthropic filed an appeal asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to overturn U.S. District Judge William Alsup’s July 17 ruling that three writers suing Anthropic for copyright infringement can represent all other authors whose books the AI company allegedly pirated to train its AI model as part of a class action.
In his July 17 decision, Alsup established a tight deadline for the lawsuit to move forward, setting a trial date for December 1. Ahead of the trial, Alsup set several important dates, none more important than September 1, when a list of works at issue is due to the court from counsel for the plaintiffs. In the lawsuit, lawyers for the authors charged that Anthropic copied about seven million books from the piracy websites Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror, making it more than likely that, at minimum, the number of titles involved in the suit will reach into the hundreds of thousands.
In his decision, Alsup also ruled that authors and publishers are both eligible to receive proceeds from the case should the plaintiffs win. On August 11, the class action law firm Edelson and the copyright firm Oppenheim + Zebrak joined the original plaintiffs’ firms of Susman Godfrey; Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein; and Cowan DeBaets Abrahams & Sheppard to represent the interests of the publishers as Publishers’ Coordination Counsel.
In a memo to Association of American Publishers members, CEO Maria Pallante wrote that AAP staff has been speaking with all plaintiffs’ firms and will serve as a point of contact for Publishers’ Coordination Counsel and publisher members of the class. Pallante noted that once the court approves the list of works at issue in the case, forms will be distributed to all class members who will then need to decide whether to remain in the class or remove themselves from the action.
Observers believe that if Anthropic loses the case it could face billions of dollars in damages. Anthropic, which is valued at $65 billion, and is in the midst of raising another $170 billion in investments—has claimed in its defense that paying damages to publishers and authors might bankrupt them.
