Anthropic received a favorable outcome in the class action lawsuit that was filed against them by a group of authors who claimed that they infringed the copyright of their works by using them without permission on AI training.

The case's presiding judge ruled that Anthropic's AI training was "fair use" and would not be considered a violation of copyright infringement laws.

However, the judge also mentioned that despite Anthropic not violating the copyright, they did not exactly abide by all the laws as they could be pursued in a piracy case for the way they obtained said content.

Anthropic Wins Copyright Case, Judge Rules 'Fair Use'

The latest developments on Anthropic's copyright infringement case saw US District Court for the Northern District of California Senior District Judge William Alsup ruling in favor of the company. Here, Judge Alsup wrote that he found that Anthropic did not violate any copyright nor infringed on the works of the authors who joined together to sue the AI company.

Judge Alsup claimed that Anthropic's AI training using the copyrighted content of the plaintiffs in this class action case is "fair use."

Specifically, Judge Alsup said that the use of copyrighted material may be considered "fair use" if the output that the AI model will produce is found to be "transformative" and not a carbon copy of the original material.

In his ruling, Alsup claimed that Anthropic's technology, which was litigated as infringing a copyright is "among the most transformative many of us will see in our lifetimes."

According to Engadget, this ruling from Judge Alsup could help set the foundations for legal precedents in future AI training, as well as copyright infringement cases in the industry.

Anthropic was also once sued by the music industry's renowned labels Universal Music, Concord, and ABKCO for generating song lyrics taken from copyrighted content.

Anthropic May Be Sued For Piracy, Judge Mentions

However, Judge Alsup did not stop there. In his ruling, he wrote that while Anthropic is clear of copyright infringement because of the fair use decision, the company still violated laws regarding piracy.

Alsup claimed that the writers may sue Anthropic for a different case, particularly in piracy, as the company has "downloaded over seven million pirated copies of books," also citing that the company "paid nothing" for it.

To top it all off, Judge Alsup claimed that Anthropic kept pirated copies of the literature in their library even as they decided not to use the content for their AI training.

Anthropic is best known for its AI chatbot called "Claude," one of the most advanced in the industry and is among the frontrunners to rival Sam Altman's OpenAI. Moreover, Anthropic is also known for being backed by Amazon, with the e-commerce company investing $4 billion to expand generative AI developments.