Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic at the 2025 World Economic Forum.
Stefan Wermuth | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A federal judge on Thursday pre-approved humanity’s proposal to pay $1.5 billion to resolve a class action lawsuit with the author group.
The lawsuit filed in US District Court for the Northern District of California was filed last year by Andrea Burtz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson. It claims to have artificially downloaded books illegally downloaded from pirated databases such as Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror.
“We are grateful for the court case today, which brings us one step closer to true accountability to humanity and informs us that all AI companies cannot override shortcuts in the law or the rights of creators,” the author said in a statement Thursday.
Humanity did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The startup was founded in 2021 by former Openai research executives, including humanity CEO Dario Amodei. Humanity, valued at $183 billion, is best known for its AI assistant Claude.
AI startups and media companies are following this lawsuit against humanity as they work to outline the implications of copyright infringement in the AI era.
Humanity initially proposed a $1.5 billion settlement earlier this month. The company said it would pay around $3,000 and interest per book, and agreed to destroy the data set containing the material that is allegedly piled on.
US District Judge William Alsup first expressed some reservations on humanity’s offers, including concerns about how to ensure that the authors are properly notified. According to the release, Allsup ultimately approved the settlement after “a few weeks of strict ratings and reviews.”
ALSUP will consider final approval of the settlement once the notification and billing process is complete, the release states.
Aparna Sridhar, Lieutenant Governor of Mankind, said in a statement that the company was pleased with the decision and that the settlement “simply settles narrow claims about how certain materials were obtained.”
“This decision will allow people and organizations to focus on developing secure AI systems that will help people and organizations expand their capabilities, advance scientific discoveries and solve complex problems,” Sridhar said.
Watch: Humanity agrees to pay $1.5 billion to resolve the author’s class action lawsuit over AI training
