Lawsuit alleges AI company Anthropic took millions of copyright-protected books for commercial benefit, harming books authors, copyright holders, and the publishing industry as a whole

A federal judge has appointed Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP and Susman Godfrey LLP to serve as Co-Lead Class Counsel in the class action lawsuit against AI company Anthropic PBC for large-scale copyright infringement. The Class’ case is headed to trial in December.

The certified class includes legal or beneficial owners of the exclusive right to reproduce copies of any copyright registered book with an ISBN or ASIN number that Anthropic downloaded from pirate websites LibGen or PiLiMi. The lawsuit seeks statutory damages and injunctive relief to prevent further unauthorized use of authors’ works.

In its ruling, the Court noted that the case “exemplifies the classic litigation that should be certified as a representative action,” and characterized Anthropic’s conduct as “Napster-style downloading” of copyrighted works that “can and should be proven on a classwide basis” at trial.

For more information, please contact Rachel Geman at rgeman @ lchb.com.

Contact us

Use the form below to contact a lawyer at Lieff Cabraser.