In a new filing, Google opposes Hachette and Cengage’s motion to join a class action of writers against the tech giant. Google argues that the publishers’ intervention is “untimely” since they could have joined the “widely reported suit” any time after it began in July 2023, including when Google subpoenaed Hachette in March 2025. Allowing the publishers to intervene in the case “would massively disrupt the proceedings and prejudice Google,” the company says. “If book publishers Cengage and Hachette…want to present ‘their own evidence and arguments’ about how Google supposedly infringed their copyrights, …they can file their own case,” the […]
Legal
Newly Released Documents Shed Light on Anthropic’s Plan to Scan Every Book
A set of unredacted and less-redacted documents from the Anthropic case have been released, revealing more details on the tech company’s secret plan to copy every book in existence to teach their AI tool “how to write well.” “Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world,” Anthropic said in the filings, as reported by the Washington Post. “We don’t want it to be known that we are working on this.” In Project Panama, Anthropic estimated that there are approximately 130 million unique books in the world, including 40 million that are able to be […]
Anthropic Settlement Update on Claims Filed and Modest Opt-Outs
A case management update filed with the court by the attorneys in the Anthropic settlement provides new data on participation in the process. The court recently extended the deadline to opt out of the settlement — reserving the right to pursue individual action against Anthropic — from January 14 to January 29. As of January 14, the attorneys report, “there are presently 86 opt outs accounting for 208 works.” As for claims received for the pool of nearly 500,000 registered, infringed works, “the Settlement Administrator has received a total of 56,798 claims for 161,691 works. The present claims rate—nearly 20%—already […]
Publishers Move to Join Copyright Suit Against Google
Hachette Book Group and Cengage have moved to intervene in a class action lawsuit first brought by writers and illustrators against Google in 2023, accusing the company of copyright infringement in using their books to train its AI system Gemini. They will represent the interests of publishers, a class of rightsholders who are not currently represented in the suit. The Association of American Publishers writes, “The publishers have moved to intervene now given recent efforts by the individual plaintiffs to certify a class that includes publishers as copyright owners of many works in suit, and Google’s objection to that effort […]
Appeals Court Rules That Artists Can Reclaim Foreign Rights
In a landmark ruling, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that U.S. copyright termination rules are enforceable around the world, upholding a novel lower court ruling from a year ago. The decision in the case, which was brought by songwriter Cyril Vetter, allows artists who have sold their copyrights in other countries to win them back. Previously, rights holders were only able to win back their copyright in the U.S., though the ruling concludes that Congress did not intend for termination rules to be limited to this country. “That contractual reversions of all rights are common practice in the […]
Sage Agrees to Correct Misleading Email to Authors About Anthropic Settlement
Sage Publishing has agreed to send a “curative email” to authors, after they previously sent an email advising class members to claim only 10 percent as their portion of the Anthropic settlement funds or possibly face delays in payment. The move comes after the Textbook & Academic Authors Association filed a motion in the case asserting that Sage’s first message misled authors to claim less than they might otherwise get. Textbook authors often get a 10 percent royalty rate, but a 50/50 split is more common for licensing, “to which this settlement payment is more akin,” the TAA reports. The […]