Jim Milliot , Publishers Weekly ; Anthropic Settlement Hearing Comes into Focus
"With the May 14 Bartz v. Anthropic settlement fairness hearing drawing closer, both the Authors Guild and Authors Alliance have issued updates on where the $1.5 billion copyright infringement agreement stands....
The Guild noted that with the higher claim rate, the payout per work will be closer to the $3,000 per work estimated in the lawsuit rather than the $4,876 payout that was based on the number of works claimed in March...
The Authors Alliance update focused on the various objections that have been made about the settlement and which are likely to be raised in the settlement hearing. The objections were unsealed following a motion filed by professor Lea Victoria Bishop.
Among the objections are the claims that the distribution plan systematically favors publishers over authors; that the class notice was “misleading/coercive,” since statutory damages per infringement can technically be up to $150,000/work which would make the settlement amount per work is inadequate; and that the settlement sets a “dangerous precedent” by permitting “a multi-billion dollar AI company to ‘buy’ its way out of massive piracy for a ‘discounted’ rate.”
Judge Martínez-Olguín, who took over the case following the retirement of Judge William Alsup, will oversee the May 14 hearing set for 2 p.m. in the San Francisco Federal Courthouse. A Zoom link will be available for those who cannot make the trip to San Francisco."
