Judge Rules Anthropic’s Use of Books for AI Training Was Legal, but Pirated Copies Raise Liability

A U.S. court ruled that Anthropic’s use of books to train its AI models qualifies as fair use, as does converting print books to digital format. However, the company must now face trial over pirated library copies allegedly used to build its internal central data library. The court denied Anthropic’s motion for full summary judgment, citing lack of justification and evasive discovery practices regarding unauthorized copies. Statutory damages remain on the table.

5. OVERALL ANALYSIS

After the four factors and any others deemed relevant are “explored, [ ] the results [are] weighed together, in light of the purposes of copyright.” Campbell, 510 U.S. at 578.

The copies used to train specific LLMs were justified as a fair use. Every factor but the nature of the copyrighted work favors this result. The technology at issue was among the most transformative many of us will ...