Anthropic Sued for $75M: Pirated Books Used to Train Claude AI

Anthropic faces a new $75 million lawsuit from authors. They claim the company pirated copyrighted books to train its Claude AI. This new complaint accuses Anthropic of copying books from pirate libraries. The authors say the company sourced their works from "shadow libraries" without consent or payment. A previous ruling established that training AI on legally acquired books is fair use, but downloading pirated copies is an act of infringement. This piracy claim is the central legal battleground. The plaintiffs believe existing settlements undervalue their works. Copyright law allows damages of up to $150,000 per willfully infringed work. This lawsuit adds to existing legal pressure on Anthropic. The company also faces a separate class action regarding its Claude Max subscription plans. The bottom line is these repeated legal challenges could change how AI companies get their training data and market products.