KEY POINTS:
• Federal judges ruled that Anthropic and Meta may use books without permission to train AI systems, according to Fox Business on June 25, 2025 • Judge William Alsup found Anthropic’s AI training was “fair use” and “exceedingly transformative,” CNBC reported on June 24 • Anthropic must still face trial for downloading 7 million pirated books, AP News reported on June 24 • Judge Vince Chhabria ruled Meta won on procedural grounds, not legal merits, NPR reported on June 25
Two federal judges in San Francisco delivered significant rulings this week that could reshape the artificial intelligence industry’s approach to training large language models on copyrighted materials. The decisions mark the first major judicial opinions on whether AI companies can legally use published books without permission for training purposes.
The Anthropic Ruling
U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled on Monday that Anthropic’s use of copyrighted books to train its Claude AI model constituted “fair use” under copyright law. According to CNBC on June 24, Alsup wrote that “the purpose and character of using copyrighted works to train LLMs to generate new text was quintessentially transformative.”
The lawsuit was brought by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson, who alleged that Anthropic built a “multibillion-dollar business by stealing hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books,” CNBC reported on June 24.
NPR reported on June 25 that Judge Alsup likened the AI’s learning process to “any reader aspiring to be a writer,” stating that “Anthropic’s (AI large language models) trained upon works not to race ahead and replicate or supplant them — but to turn a hard corner and create something different.”
However, the ruling contained a crucial caveat. AP News reported on June 24 that while Alsup dismissed the fair use claim, he ordered Anthropic to face trial over its downloading of approximately 7 million pirated books from online “shadow libraries.”
“That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for the theft but it may affect the extent of statutory damages,” Alsup wrote, according to AP News on June 24.
TechCrunch reported on June 24 that according to the lawsuit, Anthropic sought to create a “central library” of “all the books in the world” to keep “forever,” but millions of these copyrighted books were downloaded for free from pirate sites.
Internal Concerns at Anthropic
AP News reported on June 24 that documents disclosed in San Francisco’s federal court showed Anthropic employees’ internal concerns about the legality of their use of pirate sites. The company later shifted its approach and hired Tom Turvey, the former Google executive in charge of Google Books.
According to AP News on June 24, with Turvey’s help, Anthropic began buying books in bulk, tearing off the bindings and scanning each page before feeding the digitized versions into its AI model.
The Meta Decision
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria ruled in favor of Meta in a separate case brought by 13 authors including Sarah Silverman and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Fox Business reported on June 25 that the authors failed to present enough evidence that Meta’s AI would dilute the market for their work.
“This ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful,” Chhabria said, according to Reuters as cited by Fox Business on June 25. “It stands only for the proposition that these plaintiffs made the wrong arguments and failed to develop a record in support of the right one.”
NPR reported on June 25 that Meta claimed fair use and won because the authors failed to present evidence that Meta’s use of their books impacted the market for their original work.
Sympathetic but Firm
Fox Business reported on June 25 that Judge Chhabria expressed sympathy for authors’ concerns during the proceedings. The judge said generative AI had the potential to flood the market with endless content using a tiny fraction of the time and creativity normally required.
“So by training generative AI models with copyrighted works, companies are creating something that often will dramatically undermine the market for those works, and thus dramatically undermine the incentive for human beings to create things the old-fashioned way,” Chhabria said, according to Fox Business on June 25.
Industry Reactions
In a statement to NPR on June 25, Anthropic praised the judge’s recognition that using works to train large language models was “transformative — spectacularly so.” The company added: “Consistent with copyright’s purpose in enabling creativity and fostering scientific progress, Anthropic’s large language models are trained upon works not to race ahead and replicate or supplant them, but to turn a hard corner and create something different.”
CNBC reported on June 24 that a spokesperson for Anthropic said the company was “pleased” with the ruling and that the decision was “consistent with copyright’s purpose in enabling creativity and fostering scientific progress.”
Authors Guild Response
The Authors’ Guild, a major professional writers’ advocacy group, disagreed with both rulings. NPR reported on June 25 that the guild stated: “We disagree with the decision that using pirated or scanned books for training large language models is fair use.”
In an interview with NPR on June 25, the guild’s CEO Mary Rasenberger said authors need not be too concerned with the Anthropic ruling. “The impact of this decision for book authors is actually quite good,” Rasenberger said. “The judge understood the outrageous piracy. And that comes with statutory damages for intentional copyright infringement, which are quite high per book.”
According to NPR on June 25, U.S. copyright law states willful copyright infringement can lead to statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work. The ruling states Anthropic pirated more than 7 million copies of books, potentially resulting in massive damages.
Plaintiff Attorneys’ Response
NPR reported on June 25 that Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, attorneys for the plaintiffs in the Meta case, said in a statement: “The court ruled that AI companies that ‘feed copyright-protected works into their models without getting permission from the copyright holders or paying for them are generally violating the law.’ Yet despite the undisputed record of Meta’s historically unprecedented pirating of copyrighted works, the court ruled in Meta’s favor. We respectfully disagree with that conclusion.”
Legal Implications
TechCrunch reported on June 24 that this decision marks the first time courts have given credence to AI companies’ claim that fair use doctrine can absolve them from fault when using copyrighted materials to train large language models.
NPR reported on June 25 that Ray Seilie, a lawyer with Kinsella Holley Iser Kump Steinsapir who focuses on AI and creativity, said: “These rulings are going to help tech companies and copyright holders to see where judges and courts are likely to go in the future.”
“I think they can be seen as a victory for the AI community writ large because they create a precedent suggesting that AI companies can use legally-obtained material to train their models,” Seilie told NPR on June 25.
However, Seilie cautioned that this doesn’t mean AI companies can immediately scan whatever books they buy with impunity, since the rulings are likely to be appealed and could potentially reach the Supreme Court, NPR reported on June 25.
What Comes Next
The part of the Anthropic case focused on the company’s liability for using pirated works is scheduled to go to trial in December, NPR reported on June 25.
Fox Business reported on June 25 that despite siding with Meta, Judge Chhabria added the ruling applies only to the specific works included in the lawsuit and that in future cases, authors making similar claims could win if they make a stronger argument.
TechCrunch reported on June 24 that while the ruling is not a guarantee that other judges will follow Judge Alsup’s lead, it lays the foundations for a precedent that would side with tech companies over creatives.
The outcomes of these cases and dozens of similar lawsuits currently working through the courts are set to have an enormous impact on the future of AI development and the rights of content creators in the digital age.
