Bartz v. Anthropic and the $1.5 Billion Settlement: Claims, Rulings and Status

Bartz v. Anthropic is a copyright class action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (No. 3:24-cv-05417-AMO) over Anthropic's copying of books, including pirated copies, to train its Claude models, and it ended in a USD 1.5 billion non-reversionary settlement that received final approval and judgment on July 20, 2026 (Dkt. 680). The court counts the Works List at 482,460 works, and class counsel reports 449,731 final Claimed Works (Dkt. 688, filed September 2, 2026). The case matters to the training data market because it is a court record of how a buyer acquired books, and of what a class settlement paid for that acquisition: the claims, the rulings, the fee award, the payment schedule and the per-work figures are all set out below, each with its docket entry.

As of November 10, 2026, the settlement is final and the money is not yet distributed: the first payments are expected on or before November 15, 2026. The only per-work figure from an actual distribution is approximately USD 2,203.56 per Claimed Work in the initial distribution (Dkt. 688), and it is not a final total. This page is part of the independent reference on AI training data licensing. DataPacts is not affiliated with the court, class counsel or the settlement administrator, files no claims and gives no legal advice.

All figures and dates here come from court documents, the court-approved settlement website and SEC filings, and each carries its docket entry or filing date; how figures are sourced and dated is set out on the methodology page.

Bartz v. Anthropic at a Glance: Court, Docket, Parties and Status

The case is closed by a final judgment, and only the distribution of the settlement fund remains open. The table lists the case facts as of 2026-11-10 with the court document behind each.

What the Authors Claimed About Anthropic's Book Copies

The authors claimed that Anthropic infringed their copyrights by copying books to train Claude and by building a central library that included pirated copies from Books3, LibGen and PiLiMi. The Order on Fair Use (Dkt. 231, June 23, 2025) records the acquisition in numbers, and the claims rest on that record.

According to Dkt. 231, Anthropic downloaded Books3, a set of 196,640 books, in January or February 2021. It copied at least five million books from LibGen in June 2021 and at least two million from PiLiMi in July 2022, and it kept over seven million pirated copies in its central library. Separately, Anthropic bought print books and scanned them into digital files. The order does not treat these routes alike, which is why the case divides into purchased copies and pirated copies. The plaintiffs were authors of books in the class, the named plaintiffs being Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson with related entities (Dkt. 680).

Dkt. 231 describes the Books3 set, LibGen and PiLiMi as separate acquisitions at separate dates, and the counts matter because the damages case in a copyright class action is built work by work. As of the Order on Fair Use of June 23, 2025, the pirated library is therefore the core of the claim, and the claim does not depend on whether the training itself was lawful. The same distinction explains why the ruling on training and the settlement of the pirated-copy claims point in different directions without contradicting each other.

The same record shows that Anthropic also looked at licensing. In February 2024 it hired a former head of partnerships for Google's book-scanning project, who emailed major publishers about licensing in spring 2024 (Dkt. 231). The wider practice of taking books from shadow libraries for training is covered on a separate page about the wider use of shadow libraries.

Bartz v. Anthropic Docket Entries, 2024 to 2026

Six docket entries carry the case from complaint to distribution: the complaint, the order on fair use, the preliminary-approval opinion, the April 2026 claims report, the final approval order and judgment, and class counsel's distribution report. The table below lists them as of 2026-11-10, with the court document that holds each. The filing date of the complaint is not stated on this page. Each row names the document that holds the figure. A reader who wants to verify a number can open the document by its docket number, and the table keeps the order of the case: ruling on the merits of the defense, settlement, approval, claims, distribution.

The June 2025 Order on Purchased, Scanned and Pirated Copies

Judge Alsup's Order on Fair Use of June 23, 2025 (Dkt. 231) split Anthropic's copies three ways: training was fair use, scanning purchased print books was fair use, and the pirated library copies were not excused and went to trial. The order was issued under the -WHA suffix of the docket number, before the case was reassigned.

For this case the consequence is narrow. The pirated-copy claims and the damages exposure on them carried the settlement value, because the statute, as of 2026-11-10, sets statutory damages of USD 750 to USD 30,000 per work, up to USD 150,000 if the infringement is willful, and not less than USD 200 if innocent (17 U.S.C. 504(c), as of 2026-11-10). A class of hundreds of thousands of works multiplied by that range explains the size of the settlement exposure, without the court having decided any damages figure. The doctrine itself is not re-explained here: the four factors and the other rulings are covered on the fair use page.

Preliminary Approval and the Works List

The court granted preliminary approval in September 2025, and Judge Alsup's memorandum opinion of October 17, 2025 (Dkt. 437) fixed the Works List at 482,460 works and put the gross award at about USD 3,100 per work. Preliminary approval is not final approval and carried no payment.

As of the opinion of October 17, 2025, the court states the arithmetic in a footnote: "Because 482,460 works were finally identified, not 500,000, the total per work is about $3,100." The court therefore counted works, and a figure of 500,000 is a press rounding, not a court count. The figure of about USD 3,100 is a gross estimate for the whole fund divided by the works identified, before any fees, costs or reserve are deducted, and it was an estimate when the court wrote it. Later filings use other bases, as the sections below show.

Final Approval and Judgment of July 20, 2026

Judge Martinez-Olguin granted final approval and entered judgment on July 20, 2026 (Dkt. 680), dismissing the action with prejudice. As of July 20, 2026, the order confirms the USD 1.5 billion fund and reduces the attorneys' fees to USD 101,561,111.

The fee award is a lodestar of USD 27,082,963 multiplied by 3.75, about 6.8 % of the fund against the 12.5 % requested. The order disallows late opt-outs except two, reaffirms three class representatives with service awards of USD 15,000 each, and records that 440,490 of the 482,460 works were claimed as of April 16, 2026. The approval is also visible outside the court record. Wiley's 10-Q, a publisher's SEC filing, records the same approval date: "The court granted final approval of the settlement on July 20, 2026."

The Bartz Settlement Terms: Fund, Release, Fees and Opt-outs

The settlement is a USD 1.5 billion non-reversionary fund plus interest that releases Anthropic only from claims for past conduct, before August 25, 2025, and not from claims about Claude's outputs. The table gives the terms as of 2026-07-20 (Dkt. 680) and 2026-09-02 (Dkt. 688).

As of July 20, 2026 (Dkt. 680), several amounts come out of the fund before authors are paid: the fee award, expenses of USD 2,635,197.46, a cost reserve of USD 18,220,000 and the service awards. On July 20, 2026 the court cut the fee from the 12.5 % requested (USD 187.5 million) to about 6.8 % of the fund, after an original request of 20 % (USD 300 million). Ten percent of the fee is held back. The multiplier of 3.75 on the lodestar is the court's stated basis, so the fee is explained by hours worked and a multiplier, not by a share of the fund.

Notice reached 594,945 potential class members, and 482,374 works (99.98 %) were reached by direct notice. There were 350 valid opt-outs covering 1,802 works and 54 objections or comments, as recorded in the final approval order. The release is limited: it covers claims for past conduct before August 25, 2025 and leaves claims about Claude's outputs untouched. The release also fixes the date from which a new claim would start: copies made or used after August 25, 2025 are outside it. Because it releases past conduct for a payment and grants no right to future copies, the settlement is logged as a related transaction, not a license on the deal tracker.

How Much Each Work Receives: Gross Estimates Versus the Initial Distribution

As of 2026-09-02, three court-filed figures exist, and none is a final per-work total: about USD 3,100 gross (Dkt. 437), approximately USD 3,000 gross (Dkt. 680) and, on 2026-09-02, approximately USD 2,203.56 per Claimed Work in the initial distribution (Dkt. 688). The table compares them as of 2026-09-02, the filing date of the latest one. No final per-work total has been filed as of 2026-11-10.

The arithmetic in Dkt. 688, filed 2026-09-02, is about USD 991,007,024.84 available for the initial distribution divided by 449,731 Claimed Works, which gives USD 2,203.56. The amount available is net of 70 % of the fee (USD 71,092,777.70, less a 10 % holdback), the expenses, the service awards of USD 45,000 and the cost reserve.

As of 2026-09-02, the initial figure excludes Anthropic's final USD 450 million payment, so later distributions add to it, and it is neither final nor a total. The gross estimates also differ from it for a plain reason: they are computed before costs and fees and on a different count of works, while the initial figure is net and uses the works actually claimed.

Three consequences follow for a reader comparing the figures. First, each figure answers a different question: the gross estimates ask what the fund is per work, and the initial distribution asks what is available per claimed work after deductions. Second, only the last is based on works that were actually claimed. Third, the court has not filed a total per-work amount, so any single number presented as the amount each work receives is a stage figure.

A per-work share is not what one author receives. It is divided among the copyright owners of the work, by elected default splits for non-education works or by the contract or publishing agreement, and the default percentages are not stated here.

When Will the Anthropic Settlement Be Paid? Payment Schedule and Status

The first round of payments is expected on or before November 15, 2026, according to the settlement website as re-checked on November 10, 2026, and class counsel's status report sets the same date for the first distribution. The table sets out the payments and steps as of 2026-09-02, with the 2026-11-10 re-check of the website.

As of 2026-09-02 (Dkt. 688), Anthropic pays the fund in four installments of USD 300 million, USD 300 million, USD 450 million and USD 450 million. Scheduled Payment 1 of USD 450 million was paid on August 19, 2026, and the escrow held USD 1,074,903,166.44 at the time of Dkt. 688. Scheduled Payment 2 of USD 450 million plus interest is due on the earlier of September 25, 2027 or within 30 days of a qualifying funding event, a term this page does not interpret.

The schedule has two layers. The fund reaches the escrow account in installments from Anthropic, and the administrator then pays claimants from the escrow in distributions. The first layer is dated in Dkt. 688 as far as Scheduled Payment 1 and Scheduled Payment 2; the second layer is dated only for its first round, so a reader asking when a particular author is paid has an answer only for the first round, and only as an expected date.

Works with unresolved disagreements between co-claimants, or with incomplete payment information, are left out of the first round and held in reserve in escrow. Anthropic's S-1/A shows a USD 450 million current liability for Bartz at September 30, 2026 (unaudited, Anthropic's own filing), a current liability at that date. Neither the website nor class counsel gives a date for the later distributions, so none is stated here. The status was re-checked on the settlement website on November 10, 2026: it still shows final approval of July 20, 2026, the first round on or before November 15, 2026 and no per-work amount.

Claims, the Works List and the Official Settlement Website

The claim deadline passed on March 30, 2026, so no new claim can be filed; the opt-out and objection deadline passed on February 9, 2026. Payment questions go to the administrator, not to this site.

The official website is anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com, run by the court-appointed administrator JND Legal Administration (P.O. Box 91204, Seattle, WA 98111), and the court-approved notice names both. Claim information notices went out between September 2 and September 4, 2026, and the window for co-claimant review was extended from 30 to 60 days.

Claims progress is recorded in three court-sourced counts. Class counsel reported that 54 % of the works were claimed on March 19, 2026. The final approval order records 440,490 works (91.3 %) claimed as of April 16, 2026, against the Works List of 482,460 works. Dkt. 688 then fixes the final number of Claimed Works at 449,731. The Works List itself stays at 482,460 works throughout, and the closed claim process needs no step-by-step instructions here. The count of works claimed is a count of works, not of authors, because one work can have several copyright owners who claim together. Where co-claimants disagree about their shares, the work is held in reserve (see the payment schedule above), which is why the share of works claimed and the share of works paid in the first round can differ. The administrator's contact details beyond the postal address are not stated on this page; they appear on the official settlement website.

What the Settlement Signals to Holders of Licensable Data

The settlement prices past claims, not a license: it releases conduct before August 25, 2025 and grants no right to future copies, so its per-work figures are not a market rate for licensing books. The licensing side is covered elsewhere.

Fees paid for book licenses and the disputes around them are set out on the page about book license fees and disputes, and this page does not repeat them. What the Bartz record adds is how the route of acquisition mattered to the outcome: purchased and scanned books were held fair use, while pirated copies were not excused (Dkt. 231), and Anthropic had tried publisher outreach in 2024. The record sets no price on either. A holder of a book catalog reading the settlement should keep three things apart: a court-approved payment for past copying, a license fee for future use, and a damages range set by statute. The first is a one-time resolution of claims, the second is a negotiated contract, and the third is a legal ceiling and floor that frames settlement talks. Only the second is a price for data, and the Bartz record contains none.

For price comparisons per work, the prices page puts court figures beside license prices and treats its settlement row as a court figure, not a price.

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Where Bartz Sits Among Other Training-Data Cases

Bartz is a training-data copyright class action that ended in a final, court-approved settlement fund paid by an AI developer, and it is one of four suits against Anthropic recorded in the tracker. The parent page holds the case tracker with every tracked case, docket and status, and the table lists two of the other Anthropic suits and the nearest US book case as of 2026-11-09.

Anthropic's own acquisition practices and programs are described on its profile, which sets out how Anthropic acquires training data.

More About the Anthropic Settlement

This section collects the status split and the common questions. Nothing on this page is legal advice.

Pending Versus Final: What Is Settled and What Is Still Open

The judgment, the fund, the fee award and the Works List are final; the first distribution, the later distributions and the co-claimant allocations are not.

Frequently Asked Questions About the Anthropic Settlement

What happened in the Anthropic lawsuit?

Authors sued Anthropic over book copies used to train Claude. The court held training and scanned purchases fair use and sent the pirated copies to trial (Dkt. 231); the case settled for USD 1.5 billion, with final approval on July 20, 2026 (Dkt. 680).

Is the Anthropic copyright settlement legitimate?

Yes, a federal court approved it on July 20, 2026 (Dkt. 680). The court-approved notice names anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com and the administrator JND Legal Administration; DataPacts is not affiliated with either.

Can I still file a claim in the Anthropic settlement?

No, the claim deadline was March 30, 2026. Payment questions go to the administrator named on the official settlement website.

Did the court find that Anthropic infringed copyright?

No, the court made no finding of infringement. The pirated-copy claims were set for trial and settled before it, while training and scanned purchases were held fair use (Dkt. 231, Dkt. 680).

Is the settlement a license to train on the books?

No, it releases only past conduct before August 25, 2025 (Dkt. 680). The settlement grants no right to future copies. Licensing practice for authors and publishers is covered on the page about licensing books for AI training.