Anthropic faces lawsuit for copyright infringement

Three authors have filed a class-action lawsuit against the AI company Anthropic in a California federal court, accusing the firm of illegally using their books and hundreds of thousands of others to train its AI chatbot, Claude. The lawsuit, initiated by writers Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, claims that Anthropic utilised pirated versions of their works to develop the chatbot’s ability to respond to human prompts.

Anthropic, which has received financial backing from major companies like Amazon and Google, acknowledged the lawsuit but declined to comment further due to the ongoing litigation. The legal action against Anthropic is part of a broader trend, with other content creators, including visual artists and news outlets, also suing tech companies over using their copyrighted material in training AI models.

This is not the first time Anthropic has faced such accusations. Music publishers previously sued the company for allegedly misusing copyrighted song lyrics to train Claude. The authors involved in the current case argue that Anthropic has built a multibillion-dollar business by exploiting its intellectual property without permission.

The lawsuit demands financial compensation for the authors and a court order to permanently prevent Anthropic from using their work unlawfully. As the case progresses, it highlights the growing tension between content creators and AI companies over using copyrighted material in developing AI technologies.