Amongst the various publishers and authors of literary works banded together as claimants against AI company Anthropic was Bloomsbury Publishing, known best for publishing the Harry Potter books. Following settlement terms being reportedly agreed in September 2025, the details of the settlement agreement have now been released.
It is reported that Anthropic paid out a total of $1.5 billion (approximately £1.22 billion) between the claimants, with Bloomsbury receiving a sum of roughly £31.6 million, calculated from the 14,087 works that Anthropic had allegedly infringed and with each infringement being valued at roughly $3,000. It is believed that Anthropic will pay the settlement figure in instalments, with proceeds being split with the Bloomsbury’s published authors whose works were infringed.
Given that the claim did not proceed to a full trial, legal precedent has yet to be set. While it would be difficult to speculate the outcome of a trial and whether a court would have found in favour of the class-action claimants or Anthropic in this instance, there still remains strong opinions in the technology sector that AI companies should enjoy exceptions to allow them to use copyright protected works to train their Large Language Models freely, without pursuing the necessary licenses. Meanwhile, one of the lawyers for the claimants confirmed the settlement as “the largest known copyright recovery in history”.
Whether the settlement will deter AI companies from using copyright literary works without consent for training purposes in the future remains to be seen, it is likely that AI companies will continue to push the boundaries of current copyright law in order to extract as much as they can. Authors and copyright owners will continue to campaign for fair use of their works, which will involve the appropriate payment to authors for use of their works and for use only with consent.
If you have any questions on the above, or if you need any advice or support in respect of your own Intellectual Property, please do not hesitate to contact the team at McDaniels Law on 0191 281 4000 or legal@mcdanielslaw.com.
