Settlement Payout Update: September 8, 2026

If you submitted a claim for the Anthropic Lawsuit, you should have recently received an emailed notice from the Anthropic Copyright Settlement Administrator, asking you to review and/or confirm the filed claim.

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We have received reports that many of these claims show inaccurate information, so please carefully review what you have been sent. If your work is still in print with the publisher, then the funds should be allocated 50% to you (the author) and 50% to the publisher. If your work was self-published, or if the rights were reverted to you, then 100% of the funds should be allocated to you, and none to the publisher.

 

Please note that in this particular case, the David Black Literary Agency is not taking a commission,

so there is no need to include us as a beneficiary, nor will you be asked to send us a payment after you have received your portion.

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Please reach out to the official settlement team directly by calling 1-877-206-2314 or emailing info@anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com to report incorrect allocation splits or missing status updates.

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Writers Beware has recently published an article that warns authors about incorrect claims.

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Bartz v. Anthropic is a copyright lawsuit brought by authors against an AI company for using books without permission to train large language models, This lawsuit seeks to compensate the authors of those books for copyright infringement due to the illegal downloading of their works from from LibGen and PiLiMi. It should be noted that the court is holding Anthropic accountable only for the illegal downloading of the titles, not for the AI training itself.

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As such, any authors who have books that were published before August 1, 2022 may be a part of the certified class comprised of legal and beneficial owners of the rights in copyright-registered books that were downloaded by Anthropic from these sites. The Authors Guild has a useful guide and overview to this case, which you can find here: Anthropic AI Class Action: Important Information for Authors - The Authors Guild.

 

The Author’s Guild also has more information on what current steps should be taken by authors here: Bartz v. Anthropic Settlement: What Authors Need to Know.

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To determine if any of your works are included in the lawsuit, please visit the Anthropic Copyright Settlement Website and follow the directions to submit a claim.

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A few important things to note:

 

• All claims must be submitted by the claims holder (authors are beneficial owners). Agents cannot submit on their behalf.

• March 30, 2026 is the deadline to submit a claim form.

• Clients who have multiple works and/or multiple formats (audio, print etc.) that were downloaded need to file a claim for each work and each format that was downloaded.

• When submitting the claim, there’s a place where the claims holder can choose the split: The default is a 50/50 split (author/publisher) unless there’s different language in the contract. (The claims holder can upload their contract for review if they’re not sure.)

• Clients can contact the settlement administrator at the email on the website (contact either law firm representing the class) for help.

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For any specific questions regarding this settlement or other AI concerns, please reach out to your Agent directly.