Policy

U.S. District Judge William Alsup issued the preliminary approval in San Francisco federal court Thursday after the two sides worked to address his concerns about the settlement, which will pay authors and publishers about $3,000 for each of the books covered by the agreement. It does not apply to future works. “This is a fair settlement,” Alsup said, though he added that distributing it to all parties will be “complicated.”

Source: Judge approves $1.5 billion settlement over AI company Anthropic’s alleged use of pirated books

Kirsty Innes, recently appointed as a special adviser to Liz Kendall, the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, said “whether or not you philosophically believe the big AI firms should compensate content creators, they in practice will never legally have to”. Innes has deleted the statement, which she posted to X in February. In the deleted posts, seen by the Guardian, she said: “A lot of this has already happened and it can continue to happen outside the UK, whatever our laws say.”

Source: Adviser to UK minister claimed AI firms would never have to compensate creatives

An alliance of media and digital organizations have filed a complaint with Germany’s Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) against Google’s AI Overviews. It is the second instance this week of pushback against AI Overviews, following The Hollywood Reporter and Variety publisher Penske Media Corp becoming the first news publisher to sue Google over the product’s negative impact on traffic and revenue.

Source: German media groups file complaint against Google AI Overviews

The major music companies have escalated their copyright infringement lawsuit against AI music generation company Suno, filing an amended complaint that alleges the startup illegally “stream ripped” copyrighted recordings from YouTube to train its AI models. The timing of the new allegations appears directly connected to Anthropic’s recent USD $1.5 billion settlement with authors, who claimed the service obtained pirated books to train its AI models.

Source: Inspired by Anthropic’s $1.5B book piracy payout, record labels accuse Suno of illegally ‘stream ripping’ music from YouTube

In response to the judge’s concerns over the preliminary settlement reached in class action lawsuit charging AI giant Anthropic with copyright infringement, attorneys representing authors have filed materials they hope will clear up any confusion. At the top of Judge Alsup’s list were concerns about how the $1.5 billion settlement would be paid out to authors and publishers as well as whether attorneys for the authors had conducted a vigorous enough campaign to alert all authors about the lawsuit and their options.

Source: Attorneys File Reply to Questions Raised in Anthropic Settlement

Ahead of U.S. President Trump’s visit to the United Kingdom, 70-plus of the UK’s biggest creators and creative organizations have issued an open letter calling on the government to protect the rights of UK copyright holders by upholding international human rights standards. With signatures from heavy-hitters including Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, and Elton John, the letter has also been signed by creative organizations like the News Media Association, UK Music, Pan MacMillan, and Getty Images.

Source: UK Creators Demand PM Recognize Creators’ Human Rights

Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and NBCUniversal are taking legal aim at another AI company that they allege is massively ripping off their intellectual property. On Tuesday, the three media companies filed a lawsuit against MiniMax, a Chinese AI company that is reportedly valued at $4 billion, alleging “willful and brazen” copyright infringement.

Source: Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCU Sue Chinese AI Company MiniMax, Alleging It ‘Pirates and Plunders’ Studios’ Copyrighted Works on ‘Massive Scale’