‘We’ll see if I can hold my nose and approve it’: Judge hates $1.5b AI settlement with book

A federal judge on Monday skewered a $1.5 billion settlement between artificial intelligence company Anthropic and

After spending nearly an hour mostly lambasting a settlement that he believes is full of pitfalls, U.S. District Judge William Alsup scheduled another hearing in San Francisco on September 25 to review whether his concerns had been addressed.

“We’ll see if I can hold my nose and approve it” then, Alsup said before adjourning Monday’s hearing.

Afterwards, the leader of a publishers group involved in the settlement called some of the judge’s revised timetable for approving the deal “troubling,” in an acknowledgement that the proposed resolution could unravel.

Alsup “demonstrated a lack of understanding of how the publishing industry works,” said Maria Pallante, CEO of Association of American Publishers, who attended Monday’s hearing but was not asked to speak.

The judge’s misgivings emerged just a few days after Anthropic and attorneys who filed the class-action lawsuit announced a $1.5 billion settlement that is designed to resolve the pirating claims and avert a trial that had been scheduled to begin in December.

Alsup had dealt the case a mixed ruling in June, finding that training AI chatbots on copyrighted books wasn’t illegal but that Anthropic wrongfully acquired millions of books through pirate websites to help improve its Claude chatbot.

The proposed settlement would pay

Justin Nelson, an attorney for the

The judge set a September 15 deadline for a “drop-dead list” of the total books that were pirated.

Alsup’s main concern centered on how the claims process will be handled in an effort to ensure everyone eligible knows about it so the

The judge also raised worries about two big groups connected to the case — the

In a statement issued after the hearing the

The

Before the hearing Johnson,

Nelson, the lawyer for the

“This is not an under-the-radar warranty case,” Nelson said.

Alsup made it clear, though, that he was leery about the settlement and warned he may decide to let the case go to trial.

“I have an uneasy feeling about all the hangers on in the shadows,’” the judge said.

In her statement, Pallante said she hopes Alsup will remain flexible as he learns more about how the publishing industry works so the settlement can be preserved.

“The court seems to be envisioning a claims process that would be unworkable, and sees a world with collateral litigation between

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O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.