Authors push back as publishers and agents claim Anthropic settlement shares
Anthropic settled a copyright class action last year after a judge ruled that training AI models on copyrighted material is legal under fair use, but pirating that material is not. The deal received final approval in July, clearing the way for payments to authors of nearly 500,000 titles at $3,000 per pirated work. If a book is still in print with a traditional publisher, the payment splits 50-50 between author and publisher. If the book was self-published, or the publisher let it go out of print and reverted the rights, the author is meant to get the full $3,000.
This week, some authors said they received alerts that someone else had filed a claim on their payment. Mystery and thriller author April Henry wrote that HarperCollins claimed one of her books even though the rights had reverted to her at least 17 years ago, and that on the same day she got a credit alert listing HarperCollins as her employer, which she says it never was.
Victoria Strauss, who runs the Writers Beware blog, said the complaints she has received fall into two groups: publishers claiming books whose rights have already reverted, and publishers claiming a full 100% payment when the settlement entitles them to only 50%. Strauss said she is reluctant to blame malice for something poor recordkeeping can explain, and noted that some publishers have already told Anthropic the claims were a mistake and asked for a fix. Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger told The New York Times she does not see this as a grab by publishers or an attempt to specifically shortchange any one author, and instead called it the predictable outcome of bad recordkeeping and a confusing settlement process.
Strauss cautioned that what she has seen is only a peek through a small crack in a massive wall, but said the volume of reports over the previous two days, and the fact that authors keep reporting the exact same errors, suggests something more widespread and systemic than routine glitches. She said literary agencies are filing claims too, which she called surprising since agents are not rightsholders in the books they sell. Author Courtney Milan, who writes under the pen name of former law clerk and law professor Heidi Bond, put it more bluntly on Bluesky, writing that she does not think agents should be claiming percentages of the settlement at all.
Milan and the Authors Guild have been sharing guidance on how authors can dispute a wrong allocation. One detail that trips people up: to claim 100% of a payment, the rights reversion has to have happened before August 10, 2022, the settlement's cutoff "download date." The article names only HarperCollins among publishers making disputed claims, does not put a number on how many authors or how much money is affected, and carries no response from Anthropic, HarperCollins or any literary agency.
Key facts
- Anthropic's copyright settlement pays $3,000 per pirated work to authors of nearly 500,000 titles, split 50-50 with the publisher if the book is still in print, or paid in full to the author if it was self-published or the rights reverted.
- Author April Henry says HarperCollins claimed one of her books despite rights that reverted at least 17 years ago, and the same day listed HarperCollins as her employer, which she says it never was.
- Writers Beware's Victoria Strauss says complaints split into two patterns: publishers claiming books with reverted rights, and publishers claiming 100% of a payment when entitled to only 50%.
- Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger and Strauss both attribute the pattern to poor recordkeeping and a confusing settlement process rather than deliberate overreach, though Strauss calls the volume and repetition of errors more systemic than routine glitches.
- Literary agencies are also filing claims despite not being rightsholders; to claim 100% of a payment, an author's rights reversion must have happened before the settlement's August 10, 2022 download-date cutoff.
Why it matters
The $1.5 billion Anthropic settlement was framed as a resolution to one of the largest AI copyright disputes to date, but the reports show the payout mechanics themselves are now generating disputes. Money meant for authors of pirated books is being claimed, at least in some cases, by publishers whose rights have already reverted or who are entitled to only half the payment, and by literary agencies that Strauss says have no rightsholder claim at all.
Who it affects
Authors of the nearly 500,000 titles covered by the settlement, who need to check whether their payout has been claimed by someone else. HarperCollins is the only publisher named as having filed a disputed claim, on a book by April Henry. Literary agencies are also named generically, without any single agency identified. Writers Beware and the Authors Guild are the two organizations collecting and publicizing the complaints.
How to use it
Authors covered by the settlement should check their claim status rather than assume the payout will arrive automatically. The Authors Guild and Courtney Milan have been circulating guidance on disputing a wrong allocation. The key date to know is August 10, 2022, the settlement's "download date": a rights reversion has to have happened before that date for an author to claim the full $3,000 rather than split it with a publisher.
How solid is it
The account rests on named authors' own social-media posts (April Henry, Courtney Milan), on Victoria Strauss's aggregation of reader complaints at Writers Beware, and on Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger's on-record comments to The New York Times. Only one publisher, HarperCollins, is named as making a disputed claim, and the piece includes no response from Anthropic, HarperCollins, or any literary agency, and no total figure for how many authors or how much money is affected.
Risks and caveats
Strauss herself calls what she has seen only "a peek through a small crack in a massive wall," and both she and Rasenberger explicitly frame the pattern as recordkeeping error rather than intentional overreach, with some publishers already asking Anthropic to correct their claims. The practical risk sits with authors: unless they actively check and dispute a wrong claim before the process resolves, they stand to receive less than the settlement entitles them to.
“The unusually large number of reports I've received over the last two days, as well as the fact that authors are reporting the exact same errors over and over, suggest to me that these aren't the kind of routine glitches you might expect from such a large operation, but something much more widespread and systemic.”
— Victoria Strauss, Writers Beware