Anthropic Blasts Add-On Firms’ Bid for $75 Million of IP Deal

Anthropic PBC urged a federal judge to deny the $75 million in attorneys’ fees sought by non-class counsel from its historic $1.5 billion copyright class action settlement with authors over the AI company’s downloading of millions of pirated books.

There is “scant justification or substantiation” for the “extraordinary” fees the three firms—Edelson PC, Oppenheim + Zebrak, and Cowan DeBaets, Abrahams & Sheppard LLP—are seeking, Anthropic said in response filed Wednesday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Anthropic noted Judge William Alsup said in September “there will be not one penny paid to any lawyer except class counsel” Susman Godfrey LLP and Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP. The artificial intelligence company alleged the add-on firms are requesting awards ranging from 15 to 95 times the fees they claim to have incurred and called their claimed hours “excessive.”

Class counsel on Dec. 4 filed its motion for attorneys’ fees, asking for roughly $300 million in fees , with $225 million going to class counsel, a combined $60 million to Edelson and Oppenheim, and $15 million to Cowan DeBaets. The fees would be subtracted from the total settlement.

While the add-on firms purport to be “coordination counsel” for authors and publishers, Anthropic said it’s not clear who they represent since those stakeholders are already represented by class counsel. If they were retained by publishers or authors, Anthropic asked that the firms identify who they represented to determine whether it’s a significant enough portion of the class to warrant compensation from the settlement fund.

Anthropic pointed to Alsup’s concern about “hangers-on” coming out of the woodwork for the money, noting Edelson and Oppenheim entered appearances in the case only after the mediation that resulted in the settlement had been scheduled.

The AI company also was skeptical of the firms’ claimed contributions to reaching the settlement and improving the list of books covered by the deal.

“None of the additional firms explain how their involvement was non-duplicative and necessary to facilitate these improvements,” the response filing said.

Anthropic’s motion didn’t take a position on the precise award for the class counsel firms, but said case law calls into question their proposal to use a benchmark percentage to determine the fees in a “megafund” settlement like this instead of a lodestar method.

Anthropic is represented by Cooley LLP, Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, Latham & Watkins LLP, Lex Lumina LLP, and Morrison & Foerster LLP.

The case is Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, N.D. Cal., No. 24-cv-05417, response filed 12/17/25.