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This month I’d like to talk about a court case that has been in the news of late, Bartz, et al. v. Anthropic, a class action lawsuit brought against the A.I. company Anthropic over the company’s use of allegedly pirated books to train its chatbots.
The lawsuit
482,460. That’s how many creative works (novels, short stories, academic articles) were pirated by Anthropic. Anthropic—in case you haven’t heard of them—is an American artificial intelligence (AI) company founded in 2021. Its flagship product is the chatbot Claude.
When suspicious content began showing up on the internet (passages copied verbatim from published works and without permission) the lawsuits began (and not only against Anthropic; others are ongoing).
The Authors Guild spearheaded the case against Anthropic. The Guild said that 482,460 is a FRACTION of the works Anthropic pirated (the actual number is 7 million) and represents the number that meet the settlement criteria. Anthropic, for its part, acknowledges no wrongdoing, and says that none of the pirated works were used to train publicly available chatbots.
The 1.5 billion dollar settlement is the largest in U.S. history. It would result in each author/publisher receiving about $3000 per work, to be split 50/50 (1.5 billion ÷ 482,460 is roughly 3000). $3000, that is, if all of the 482,460 affected parties file claims. If half file, everyone would get $6000. In other words, all the money in the fund (minus expenses and fees) is going to the authors and publishers.
In addition, Anthropic must destroy any datasets containing pirated works and provide written confirmation. They agree not to use the works in the future without explicit permission, and can be sued once again if they fail to do so.
Note that this is a settlement not a jury verdict. The judge will approve or disapprove the settlement next spring. Lawyer expenses/fees are set by the judge at settlement time and are expected to be around 20% of the judgment awarded. The settlement money is in escrow accruing interest. Interest on $1.5 billion is a tidy sum (and is expected to cover a sizable portion of the expenses/fees).
Apparently, the judge is concerned that the settlement doesn’t go far enough to adequately compensate authors and publishers, since the law provides compensation of up to $150,000 per copyright violation. He’s thinking things over and said that despite his reservations he may have to hold his nose and approve it (the settlement as it was agreed to by the Authors Guild and Anthropic). Stay tuned.
Detailed information about the case and the settlement can be found on the Authors Guild website.
A personal note
I don’t know about you but this escapade (stealing copyrighted works) leaves me feeling . . . mad. None of my works were stolen, at least by Anthropic (I checked), but I recently asked a chatbot to “write a story in the style of Brian Biswas” and it spit out a middle-school-level piece that revolved around the main character in my novel The Astronomer, complete with quotes lifted not only from the novel, but from one of my short stories. In this case, the primary sources were acknowledged so maybe that’s OK. I still felt violated.
Where is all this headed? Who knows. I fear, though, that it’s someplace not good. Maybe in a future newsletter, I’ll talk about my feelings on AI.
This Month’s quote
“The ocean doesn't complain about the dance of ten-million waves; so don't be concerned with the rise and fall of thoughts.”
—Papaji
Remember this when your mind leads you hither and thither. Don’t panic. Resolution will come. This affects everyone, of course, but I think it’s particularly hard on creative people, those whose minds simply can’t keep still.
I remember my mother admonishing me when I was ten years old. We were in the kitchen—it’s amazing the details one remembers from long ago—and she asked me a question, but I didn’t respond.
“Brian, you’re not listening!” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I was thinking about Achilles and the tortoise.”
She rolled her eyes. “Your mind is always a million miles away. Does it ever still?”
The answer then was—and now is—“No.”
I call it “flutter.” I wish I could say it gets better with age, but it doesn’t. In fact, it gets worse as life gets more complicated and one’s brain more cluttered. What does get better—if one works at it—is your ability to deal with these mind swings as they occur.
This month’s giveaway
This month’s freebie is The Lake of Flies, a story from my collection, A Betrayal and Other Stories. When I was a teenager I went canoeing with my father in northern Minnesota, the Land of 10,000 Lakes. This story arose out of that time.
That’s all for now
Thanks for reading and hit me up with questions/comments anytime (simply reply to this email). I’ll do my best to respond quickly. And feel free to forward this email to anyone who you think might enjoy my writing.
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Best,
Brian
