Anthropic Copyright Class Certification Poses Grouping Challenge

A California federal judge on Thursday put forward one possible path for a group of authors seeking to certify a copyright class action against generative AI firm Anthropic PBC.

Judge William Alsup at a hearing in his San Francisco courtroom appeared conflicted over whether authors suing Anthropic for using their books to train its AI model without permission can proceed as a nationwide class of copyright owners.

But the judge said he could imagine a workable class definition that includes all authors who own a valid copyright registration to their book. As part of the class notification process, the plaintiffs ...