Authors dispute publisher claims on Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement payouts

Authors expecting payments from Anthropic's $1.5 billion copyright settlement say they have received emails this week informing them that another party is claiming a share of their money, TechCrunch reports. Anthropic settled the class action last year after a judge ruled that training AI models on copyrighted material is fair use but that pirating the material is not. The deal received final approval in July, allowing payments to proceed. Under its terms, the authors of nearly 500,000 titles will receive $3,000 per pirated work. If a book is still in print with a traditional publisher, the money is split evenly between author and publisher. If the book was self-published, or the publisher reverted the rights by letting it go out of print, the author is meant to receive the full amount. Writers are now posting on social media that publishers appear to be claiming more than their share. Mystery and thriller author April Henry wrote that HarperCollins claimed one of her books whose rights reverted at least 17 years ago, and that on the same day a credit alert showed the publisher had been added as her employer, which she said it never was. Victoria Strauss of the Writer Beware blog said complaints she has received fall into two broad categories, including publishers seeking payment on reverted titles. The dispute affects how quickly and to whom settlement funds flow, and it puts the claims process itself under scrutiny.