If you arrived here searching for a “Miller, Cook and Kelly” AI settlement, that firm name does not appear in the case. The Anthropic AI copyright settlement is Bartz v. Anthropic, a $1.5 billion class action resolved in the Northern District of California and led by Rachel Geman of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein and Justin Nelson of Susman Godfrey. A Lieff Cabraser associate named Jacob Miller filed an appearance in the case, which may explain the confusion, but no firm called Miller, Cook and Kelly is involved. It is the largest copyright settlement in American history, and it pays authors and publishers whose books Anthropic downloaded from pirate libraries to train its Claude AI models.
What the Settlement Resolves
Three authors — Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson — sued Anthropic in August 2024. They alleged the company downloaded millions of pirated books from two shadow library sites, Library Genesis (LibGen) and Pirate Library Mirror (PiLiMi), and fed them into Claude without permission or payment.
In June 2025, Judge William Alsup split the case in two on summary judgment. He held that training AI on copyrighted books is “exceedingly transformative” and qualifies as fair use when the copies were legally acquired. Downloading books from LibGen and PiLiMi, he ruled, was not protected. With statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work exposed and the fair use defense gone on the piracy claims, Anthropic settled. Judge Alsup granted preliminary approval on September 25, 2025.
Who Qualifies as a Class Member
The certified class includes all legal or beneficial copyright owners of books found in the versions of LibGen and PiLiMi that Anthropic downloaded. To qualify, a book must meet three conditions:
- It has an ISBN or ASIN.
- It was registered with the U.S. Copyright Office within five years of publication.
- That registration occurred either before Anthropic’s download or within three months of first publication.
Foreign authors and publishers are included as long as their registered works appear in the datasets. Two other proposed classes were denied certification: a “Books3 Pirated Books Class” and a “Scanned Books Class,” which Judge Alsup found had metadata and identification problems. So if your book was affected only through The Pile’s Books3 subset or through Anthropic’s scanning of purchased print copies, you are not in this class.
How Much Each Book Receives
The $1.5 billion fund (plus interest) is non-reversionary, meaning unclaimed money stays in the pool rather than reverting to Anthropic. It covers roughly 482,460 eligible works, which works out to about $3,000 to $3,100 per title before fees and costs.
Each eligible title receives an equal share. For most trade and university press books, the default split is 50/50 between author and publisher. Self-published authors and authors who have reclaimed their rights receive 100%. Co-authors split the author share equally unless their contracts say otherwise. Educational works have no default split, so claimants must document their contractual entitlement.
Disputes between rightsholders over how to divide a payment go first to the settlement administrator and then to a court-appointed special master, attorney Naomi Jane Gray, whose decisions are final and binding.
The Claims Deadline Has Passed
Claims were filed online through anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com, administered by JND Legal Administration. The deadline was March 30, 2026, and it has closed. By the May 2026 fairness hearing, 447,576 works had been claimed, roughly a 93% opt-in rate. Only 350 class members opted out.
If you filed on time, the claim required your work’s title, author, publisher, U.S. Copyright Office registration number, ISBN or ASIN, and payment details for ACH, Zelle, or a physical check. Anyone claiming a split other than the 50/50 default had to upload their publishing contract or other supporting documentation.
When Payments Are Expected
Anthropic is paying the settlement in four installments: $300 million was paid by October 2, 2025; another $300 million is due within days of final approval; $450 million is due by September 25, 2026; and the final $450 million is due by September 25, 2027.
The official settlement website estimates an initial payment date of August 10, 2026, contingent on final approval and the exhaustion of any appeal period.
Status of Final Approval
Fifty-three formal objections were filed before the January 2026 deadline. Concerns raised at the May 14, 2026 fairness hearing included under-counting of works when a single group copyright registration covered multiple independently published novels, disadvantages to pseudonymous works, the adequacy of a one-time payment, and a request to reopen the opt-out period on the ground that key documents had only recently been posted.
Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, who took over the case from Judge Alsup, held a 75-minute hearing but did not grant final approval immediately. She ordered Anthropic to file a brief by May 21, 2026 explaining why late opt-outs should not be honored, and she indicated she would not need further input from objectors. As of mid-2026, final approval has not been issued.
What the Settlement Does Not Cover
The release runs only to conduct before August 25, 2025. It does not cover claims based on AI model outputs, and it grants Anthropic no license for future training. Anthropic must also destroy all original files and copies of works downloaded from LibGen and PiLiMi within 30 days of final judgment.
If your concern is how Claude currently uses or reproduces your work, or how Anthropic trains future models, those questions sit outside this settlement.