MARGARET ATTRIDGE , Courthouse News Service; Authors, publishers near final approval of $1.5 billion Anthropic copyright settlement
"Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, a Joe Biden appointee, allowed objectors to address the court, where several spoke about the concerns they had with how the plaintiffs put together the eligible works list.
One class member told the judge that the works list undercounts the number of eligible works in the class by treating each copyright registration number as a single work, regardless of how many books are covered by the registration. The class member explained that she has certain group copyright registration numbers that include 40 separate, independently published novels under one registration number, all of which were downloaded by Anthropic without permission. However, under the current terms of the settlement agreement, the novels would be considered just one claimable work.
Another class member spoke to the exclusion of works that were published under a pseudonym, disadvantageous to small publishers and self-published authors in the class, while a third said they believed a one-time payment was not enough because Anthropic was continuing to profit off the copyrighted work they stole.
James H. Bartolomei III of Duncan Firm, an attorney representing four other objectors, asked the court to reopen the opt-out period as certain key documents from the case were only uploaded to the settlement website recently.
“Nothing I am asking for takes a dollar away from any class member who filed a claim. I’m not asking the court to stop the settlement from ever being approved. Just for sufficient information to make an informed choice,” he said."
