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ARTICLE · 04 NOVEMBER 2025

October 2025 FZLZ Minute

Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu, P.C.
Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu, P.C.
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Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu, P.C.

Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu, P.C.

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During discovery, plaintiffs learned that Anthropic purchased millions of new and used books, then stripped the bindings, cut the pages to size, scanned the books into digital form, and then discarded the paper originals

United StatesConsumer Protection
Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu, P.C.
Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu, P.C.
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Anthropic case settled: Bartz v. Anthropic, No. C 24-05417 (N.D. Cal.)

In 2024, three authors filed a class action against Anthropic, maker of the AI chatbot Claude.

During discovery, plaintiffs learned that Anthropic purchased millions of new and used books, then stripped the bindings, cut the pages to size, scanned the books into digital form, and then discarded the paper originals. In addition to buying millions of books, Anthropic downloaded over seven million books from pirate websites.

In June 2025, Judge William Alsup held that Anthropic's use of the books to train its large language model was "exceedingly transformative" and therefore constituted fair use. As to purchased books, the court said that because Anthropic discarded the paper copy, it was basically replacing the purchased copy with a "more convenient space-saving and searchable digital copy for its central library – without adding new copies, creating new works, or redistributing

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