Anthropic Faces a New $75 Million Lawsuit for Pirating Books to Train Claude AI

Anthropic faces a new $75 million lawsuit from authors who claim the company pirated copyrighted books to train Claude. The fresh case adds to mounting legal pressure on the AI developer.

The suit signals that the fight between authors and AI companies remains far from over across the industry.

What the New Anthropic Copyright Lawsuit Alleges

A copyright lawsuit is a legal action claiming someone used protected creative work without permission, licensing, or fair compensation. The new complaint accuses Anthropic of copying books from pirate libraries to train Claude. Furthermore, it seeks $75 million in damages.

The authors argue that Anthropic sourced their works from well-known shadow libraries. These sites host copyrighted material without any consent from the original creators, according to The New York Post.

Moreover, the plaintiffs say the company never sought licensing or offered payment before ingesting the books.

The case rests on a specific legal distinction. A previous ruling found that training AI on legally acquired books qualifies as fair use.

However, downloading pirated copies was deemed a separate act of infringement. As a result, the piracy claim remains the central legal battleground.

The plaintiffs believe existing settlements undervalue their works. Copyright law allows statutory damages of up to $150,000 per willfully infringed work.

The authors argue that smaller per-book payouts fail to reflect the true scale of the alleged infringement.

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Why the Legal Pressure on Anthropic Keeps Building

The new lawsuit does not stand alone. Anthropic already faces a separate class action filed in June over its Claude Max subscription plans. That case targets the company on a completely different front, adding to the broader legal strain.

In that earlier suit, plaintiff Karl Kahn alleged the advertised 5x and 20x usage boosts collapsed under hidden caps.

Furthermore, the complaint targeted the $100 Max 5x and $200 Max 20x tiers. It sought refunds for subscribers since the plans launched in 2025.

The copyright case carries far heavier financial stakes. Anthropic previously settled a landmark class action for roughly $1.5 billion. That deal paid authors around $3,000 each for an estimated 500,000 pirated books covered under the agreement.

Some authors chose to opt out of that settlement. As a result, they retained the right to pursue their own individual claims.

The new $75 million lawsuit reflects exactly that strategy, allowing plaintiffs to seek far larger per-work damages.

Anthropic maintains a strong financial position despite the pressure. The company is valued at hundreds of billions of dollars following recent funding rounds. However, repeated legal challenges could reshape how AI firms source training data and market their subscription products going forward.

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