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Anthropic settles AI copyright lawsuit over Project Panama

Updated 3 times since CLSTR started tracking revisions of this situation.

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2026-08-10 12:52 UTC → 2026-08-11 02:12 UTC · added removed

Anthropic book scanning controversy settles AI copyright lawsuit over Project Panama

In July 2026, Anthropic launched “Project Panama,” ordering hundreds of out-of-print German books from antiquarians, cutting their spines, scanning the pages at high speed, and discarding the physical copies. The company argued the digitization qualified as fair or transformative use under U.S. law, while criticism focused on the impact on authors’ rights and German cultural heritage. A week later, internal legal documents revealed the scale of the effort—dubbed “destructive scanning”—and an initiative involving the aim to acquire millions mass acquisition of printed works. The expanded disclosure intensified objections from booksellers, collectors, and heritage organizations across Europe out-of-print and North America, who warned that rare and historic volumes could be lost forever and called for safeguards to protect physical books while for training its Claude AI development proceeds. Further reports clarified that the operation, which reportedly began in early 2024, chatbot. The process involved purchasing tens of thousands of books volumes from suppliers such as like Better World Books and World of Books to train the Claude AI chatbot. To facilitate industrial-scale digitization, Anthropic utilized Books, using hydraulic presses to remove covers before pages were cut covers, cutting spines for high-speed scanning, and scanned. Following digitization, subsequently shredding or recycling the physical copies were shredded and recycled into products like such as cardboard and toilet paper. This practice is reportedly used as part of legal arguments regarding “fair use” to mitigate copyright infringement claims. Critics While Anthropic argued this “destructive scanning” constituted transformative fair use, critics and booksellers in Australia, Canada, Spain, Germany, New Zealand, and Europe have noted the Netherlands described the practice as a rising trend of massive purchases form of specialized “cultural barbarism” that threatens unique historical texts. By August 2026, the controversy reached a legal resolution. Anthropic reached a settlement in the ‘Bartz v. Anthropic PBC’ class-action lawsuit, agreeing to pay approximately $1.5 billion to affected authors and out-of-print books by intermediaries linked nearly $19 million to publishers, including Bloomsbury Publishing. Although the court ruled that training AI sector. By August 2026, new details emerged regarding models on copyrighted material can be considered “fair use” due to its transformative nature, the involvement settlement specifically addressed the acquisition of pirated or unauthorized content. The litigation also brought further scrutiny to the bibliographic database ISBNdb, which reportedly offered services to source between 1,000 and up to one million books. books for tech companies. While ISBNdb denied purchasing or destroying books, claiming its role was merely a “market test,” legal documents from the Bartz v. Anthropic case have brought these practices to light. settlement concludes a period of intense scrutiny regarding the industrial-scale digitization of global cultural heritage.

Versions

  1. 2026-08-11 02:12 UTC Anthropic settles AI copyright lawsuit over Project Panama
  2. 2026-08-10 12:52 UTC Anthropic book scanning controversy
  3. 2026-08-10 01:31 UTC Anthropic book scanning controversy
  4. 2026-07-29 04:34 UTC Anthropic book scanning controversy

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