Some authors expecting money from Anthropic's copyright settlement got a surprise this week. Emails informed them that someone else had also filed a claim on their payment.
Anthropic settled a copyright class action lawsuit last year. A judge had ruled that training AI models on copyrighted material is legal under fair use, but pirating that material is not.
The deal received final court approval in July 2026. That approval cleared the way for payments to start going out.
How the Payment Split Works
Under the settlement, authors of nearly 500,000 titles will receive $3,000 for each pirated work. The way that money gets divided depends on the book's status.
If a book is still in print with a traditional publisher, the payment splits 50-50 between the author and the publisher. If the book was self-published, or if the publisher let the book go out of print and returned the rights, the author is supposed to get the full amount.
Mystery and thriller author April Henry shared one example on social media. She said HarperCollins claimed a book whose rights had reverted to her at least 17 years ago.
She also said she got a credit alert the same day listing HarperCollins as her employer, which she said was never true.
Publishers and Agents Face Questions
Writer and blogger Victoria Strauss has tracked similar complaints on her site, Writers Beware. She said the issues fall into two main groups.
In some cases, publishers are seeking payment for books they no longer have rights to. In other cases, publishers are claiming the full payment when they are only entitled to half.
Strauss said she is reluctant to assume bad intent. She noted that some publishers have already told her they made a mistake and asked Anthropic to fix it.
Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger told The New York Times she does not see this as an attempt by publishers to take money from authors. She said she believes the errors come from confusion during a complicated settlement process.
Strauss agreed that the complaints she has seen so far represent a small slice of the total claims filed. But she said the volume of reports over the past two days, along with the repeated pattern of the same errors, suggests the problem is widespread.
Literary agents have also entered the picture. Strauss said she has received reports of agencies filing claims on payments, which she called surprising since agents do not hold rights to the books they represent.
Author Courtney Milan, who writes under a pen name, criticized the practice directly on Bluesky. She said agents should not be claiming a percentage of the settlement money.
Milan and the Authors Guild have shared information on how authors can dispute incorrect claims on their payments.
One detail matters most for these disputes. To claim 100% of a payment, an author's book rights must have reverted before August 10, 2022, which is the official "download date" used in the settlement.
Authors who believe their payment has been claimed incorrectly are being encouraged to file a dispute through the settlement process before payments are finalized.
