BREAKING NEWS: Judge Alsup rules Anthropic committed copyright infringement by acquiring pirated books to create central library

Judge also rules that training copies were fair use

Judge William Alsup just issued his order on summary judgment. It's a major win for the plaintiffs Bartz, even though the court ruled that the use of copies to train Anthropic's model were fair use. Significantly, the court also ruled that Anthropic's acquisition of pirated books from shadow libraries that Anthropic used to create a general library at Anthropic was copyright infringement.

Judge Alsup doubted whether the initial acquisition of pirated books from online sources to train AI models could be justified if no central library was created, but said he didn't need to decide that case because Anthropic did create a library.

The key parts of the order:

(1) The acquiring of pirated copies of books from so-called shadow libraries and storing them in a central library at Anthropic indefinitely is copyright infringement "A separate justification was required for each use. None is even offered here except for Anthropic’s pocketbook and convenience." Trial on damages.

(2) the copies subsequently used to train Anthropic's AI models were fair use.

(3) the copies stored by Anthropic in a central library and used potentially for other uses needs to go to trial. Record not developed.

Download the Order here.