Bartz v. Anthropic Update

 by Sybil Johnson

Last November I wrote a post about the Bartz v. Anthropic class action lawsuit. You can read it here.

Before I continue let me note that I am not a lawyer nor do I know much about the law. So I’m not an expert in this. This is my take on the subject. 

Basically, there are two parts to this lawsuit: (1) use of works without publisher’s or author’s permission to train AI and (2) use of pirated copyrighted works to train AI. A settlement was reached for the pirated portion. The judge deemed use of works that were bought as fair use, even if they didn’t have the publisher’s or author’s permission. I don’t really agree with that, but I’m moving on. We’ll see what happens with the other same or similar lawsuits currently going on. Maybe some other judge will decide differently.

As I noted before, I’ve been keeping tabs on this not only because I’m an author but because three of my books were used in training.

Things are starting to move. I received an email recently with a link to an online portal and passcode where I could verify the distribution of the money between me and my publisher. I viewed, I verified it was 50-50 (the standard), I gave them my SSN. And now I wait. Rumor has it that they’ll be starting to send out checks in November. We will see. The estimates for payouts seem to be $3000 per work minus fess and costs. I saw one article that estimated that would come out to about $2200 per work. We’ll see what actually happens.

My claim fell into the No Disagreements category so I didn’t have to do anything special. Phew.

There are, however, a lot of claims that fall into the Disagreements category where there is some disagreement about claim distribution between authors and publishers. Some publishers are allegedly claiming 100% of the settlement. An article from Writer Beware noted that some of these disagreements may actually be mistakes so an author should check with their publisher if they fall into this category. Authors can contest the distribution. 

Also note that if you’re published with a University press or textbook publisher, things can get more complicated. And, even though some of them would like to be, agents are not part of the settlement.

The Authors Guild and Writer Beware have good articles that go into more detail about what’s currently going on. 

Authors Guild: https://authorsguild.org/news/important-information-regarding-anthropic-copyright-settlement-claim-notices/

Writer Beware: https://writerbeware.blog/2026/09/04/anthropic-copyright-settlement-publishers-are-making-incorrect-claims-on-authors-payouts/