ARTICLE AD BOX
... even when they're (supposed to be) on your side.
Ted Gioia has the breaking news:
Authors win a big lawsuit against AI—but the judge says they may not be able to trust their own lawyers.He explains that the high-tech plagiarism modus of these "large-learning models" (LLMs) simply means that the models are "trained" on thousands of books, and millions of articles and blog posts. All written by an actual person. A person holding copyright in that work.
So when authors, in a class action, won an ironclad case again AI company Anthropic for violating their copyrights ...
"some thought that this might result in “more than a trillion dollars in damages.” That would put Anthropic in bankruptcy and send a message to the entire AI industry: Don’t mess with creators!
Yay!
But ...
Instead the lawyers negotiated a quick deal for $1.5 billion—and Anthropic didn’t even need to admit wrongdoing. But the penalty was so light that the judge has refused to accept it. Instead he expresses concern that the settlement will be forced “down the throat of authors.”How is this possible? Their own lawyers negotiated the deal.
But listen to the judge. He admits that class members often “get the shaft” in situations like this. And he adds: “I have an uneasy feeling about hangers-on with all this money on the table.”
Simply put, lawyers want their commission more than they care about their clients. Or their case.
This is the sad reality of copyright litigation to protect human creators. My copyrights as an author have been violated and I don’t want a cash settlement—I want the stealing stopped. I want a Napster-style shutdown, and there’s legal precedent to support this. But what lawyer can I trust? They make money on a cash settlement, not on stopping AI use of my book.Expect to see similar settlements in music copyrights. A few people will get a nice payday, but nothing else will change.
English (US) ·