Anthropic Illegally Downloaded Korean Books for AI

Anthropic's illegal downloads of 22 Korean books led to $1.5B settlement

It has been revealed that Anthropic downloaded books from illegal piracy sites for the development of its artificial intelligence (AI) model "Claude," including multiple works by Korean authors such as Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Han Kang.

According to the book list published on Anthropic's copyright settlement official website on the 16th, at least 22 works by Korean authors were included among the total 482,460 works subject to the settlement.

This includes three works by Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Han Kang, such as "Human Acts," 'The Vegetarian,' and 'White,' four works by Kim Young-ha including 'Your Republic Is Calling You,' and three works by Shin Kyung-sook including 'Please Look After Mom.' Additionally, works by Korean authors such as Hwang Sok-yong and Kim Ae-ran were also confirmed to be included.

The books in question were compiled as part of a class-action settlement in the U.S. In 2024, three authors, including Andrea Bartz, the author of the bestselling thriller novel "We Were Not There," filed a class-action lawsuit against Anthropic, alleging that the company unlawfully copied and used their copyrighted works during the development of Claude.

During the lawsuit, it was revealed that Anthropic downloaded over 7 million digital copies from illegal book-sharing sites between 2021 and 2022. Anthropic illegally obtained at least 5 million copies from "Library Genesis (LibGen)" in 2021 and at least 2 million copies from "Pirate Library Mirror (PiLiMi)" in 2022.

The U.S. court ruled that while the act of using books for AI training itself constitutes "fair use" under copyright law, the act of downloading and storing illegal copies to secure books for training was not recognized as fair use. Consequently, Anthropic agreed to pay the plaintiffs a total of 1.5 billion dollars, approximately 3,000 dollars per book, for around 500,000 illegally copied books.

Meanwhile, Anthropic has been securing training materials since 2024 by purchasing and digitizing paper books in bulk. To this end, the company contacted global publishing and distribution companies, and it was reported that Woongjin Booksen, a domestic company, was also included among the partners.