Judge rules Anthropic illegally scraped Stanford books for Claude

Despite the settlement, authors Tobias Wolff and Chang-Rae Lee opted out, arguing the compensation is insufficient. They filed a separate lawsuit, Cruz v. Anthropic, seeking a jury trial for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work, compared to the approximately $3,000 per work offered in the Bartz settlement. Wolff, a National Medal of Arts winner, described the unauthorized use of his work as "slave labor" and noted that 10 of his publications were used without permission.

The legal landscape remains complex, with over 70 infringement lawsuits filed against AI companies, including by The New York Times and Getty Images. Paul Goldstein, a Stanford Law scholar and plaintiff, highlighted the "transaction costs" of licensing millions of individual works. The Authors Guild is working with Congress to create national legislation requiring licensing, aiming to ensure authors are compensated and credited for their contributions to AI training.