Judge Alsup postpones preliminary approval of Anthropic’s $1.5B authors’ settlement

Judge William Alsup has rejected/postponed preliminary approval of the record-setting $1.5 billion settlement Anthropic reached with a class of writers suing over alleged copyright piracy used to train the company’s AI models.

According to court orders reported by multiple outlets, Alsup said the settlement was “nowhere close to complete” and expressed disappointment that key information was left unresolved. The judge highlighted several missing or incomplete items:

• Final Works List identifying the works at issue
• Final Class/Authors List showing class members
• A clear notice & claim form process for class members (with opt-in/out options)

Key facts:

• Settlement amount: $1.5 billion
• Approximately 500,000 authors are included in the class
• Expected payout: roughly $3,000 per work
• Deadlines set by the court: Sept 15 for the final Works List; all items (works list, class list, and claim form) must be examined and approved by the court by Oct 10 before preliminary approval may be granted.

Alsup warned that class members often get shortchanged after a monetary figure is set and cautioned counsel to provide “very good notice” and a claim form that gives members a real choice to participate or opt out. The judge also demanded protections to prevent future lawsuits over the same issues.

What happens next: If counsel provides the missing materials and the court approves them, the settlement could move forward. If not, the deal could be reopened or the case could proceed to trial.

Sources: Engadget (original report) and Publishers Weekly.

Note: Link to the Engadget article in the original source was cleaned to remove RSS query parameters.