Lawyers representing authors and publishers in the high-profile copyright case against Anthropic are now asking a federal judge to award them $300 million in fees. Their request comes weeks after the artificial intelligence company agreed to a $1.5 billion settlement, one of the largest ever reached in a copyright class action.
Fee request raises stakes in historic AI copyright fight
The legal team, drawn from Susman Godfrey and Lieff Cabraser, submitted the filing on Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco. They argue that the proposed fee — 20% of the full settlement amount — aligns with major class actions handled in California and across the western United States. According to the filing, the attorneys logged more than 26,000 hours on the case and described the litigation as unusually complex and “loaded with risk.”
Anthropic’s settlement, reached in October, resolved claims that it trained its AI systems on hundreds of thousands of pirated books. As part of the agreement, the company also committed to destroy disputed datasets and certify that the material is not used in commercial versions of its models, including Claude. The settlement promises class members more than $3,000 for each copyrighted work involved in the lawsuit.
The company has denied any wrongdoing. It can, however, contest the attorneys’ fee request during the approval process. Anthropic did not respond to a request for comment, while lawyers for the plaintiffs also declined to speak publicly.
The deal won preliminary approval in September, and authors have until Jan. 15 to opt out and pursue separate claims. U.S. District Judge William Alsup will hold a fairness hearing in April, when objectors will have an opportunity to challenge the settlement terms.
The case is Andrea Bartz et al. v. Anthropic PBC, No. 3:24-cv-05417-WHA, in the Northern District of California.
