In a twist of events, Anthropic’s $1.5B settlement with authors was DENIED by the judge overseeing the case. Why and what does this mean? It was denied because the judge doesn’t believe the authors (in the settlement each of which would be paid $3000 in damages [from a possible $150k max amount if the case continued without settlement] may not have their voices fully heard or represented in the settlement outcome. Given the sheer number of authors (half a million), the chances that everyone would be happy with the terms, and included in a way that respects them, is not self-evident.
Why is this important? This case is the current barometer for how other cases may be settled/determined. The damages all relate to illegally torrenting of the copyrighted authors’ content, and whatever outcome happens here is what others will cite as what should follow. Too little damages says that copyright holders’ work is of less value, too much, and you bankrupt the company and no one gets anything.
The fine print also matters. What is agreed to in the terms, beyond damages, and how will those terms continue to affect the authors’ works and their future sales.
A fascinating twist on a continuing drama. I larger bites than 1-3 minutes (and better written and acted!).
PS AI Generated image with the prompt: “Create a cartoon image of a conceptual embodiment of an AI platform (named “Anthropic”) standing in a court room in front of a screaming judge, who is slamming down a gavel in an overly exaggerated way with a speech bubble saying “DENIED!” coming from his mouth.” brought to you by “well at least this image didn’t have a smiling robot and two gavels”.
