Judge William Alsup just issued his order on summary judgment. It’s a major win for the plaintiffs Bartz, even though the court ruled that the use of copies to train Anthropic’s model were fair use. Significantly, the court also ruled that Anthropic’s acquisition of pirated books from shadow libraries (Books3, LibGen, and Pirate Library Mirror) that Anthropic used to create its own general, permanent library at Anthropic was copyright infringement. Trial on damages, including willfulness.
Judge Alsup doubted whether Anthropic’s initial acquisition of pirated books from online sources to train AI models could be justified as fair use even if no central library was created, but said he didn’t need to decide that case because Anthropic did create a library. This issue will be big in other LLM cases involving pirated books, such as Kadrey v. Meta and potentially the OpenAI MDL Litigation (although OpenAI destroyed at least 2 books datasets it used to train its AI models).
Although the decision is incredibly important in being the first to recognize the use of copies to train an AI model is a transformative fair use, that part of the decision won’t save Anthropic from liability on the use of pirated books to create a general library at Anthropic.
the key parts of the order of judge alsup:
(1) Anthropic’s acquiring of pirated copies of books from so-called shadow libraries and storing them in a central library at Anthropic indefinitely is copyright infringement. “A separate justification was required for each use. None is even offered here except for Anthropic’s pocketbook and convenience.” Trial on damages, including willfulness. “That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for the theft but it may affect the extent of statutory damages.” [Win for Plaintiffs.]
(2) The copies subsequently used to train Anthropic’s AI models were fair use. It had an “exceedingly transformative purpose”–“spectacularly so”—to create a “technology … among the most transformative many of us will see in our lifetimes.” [Win for Anthropic.]
(3) The copies stored by Anthropic in a central library and used potentially for other uses needs to go to trial. Record not developed.
Creating a permanent, general-purpose library was not itself a fair use excusing Anthropic’s piracy. * * *
Judge william alsup in bartz v. anthropic
This order doubts that any accused infringer could ever meet its burden of explaining why downloading source copies from pirate sites that it could have purchased or otherwise accessed lawfully was itself reasonably necessary to any subsequent fair use. There is no decision holding or requiring that pirating a book that could have been bought at a bookstore was reasonably necessary to writing a book review, conducting research on facts in the book, or creating an LLM. Such piracy of otherwise available copies is inherently, irredeemably infringing even if the pirated copies are immediately used for the transformative use and immediately discarded.
But this order need not decide this case on that rule. Anthropic did not use these copies only for training its LLM. Indeed, it retained pirated copies even after deciding it would not use them or copies from them for training its LLMs ever again. They were acquired and retained, as a central library of all the books in the world.
the key part of the facts related to Anthropic’s central library
key part of opinion on pirated copies stored in central library
the fair use in training copies — “Exceedingly transformative”
The decision wasn’t all bad for Anthropic. The training copies were found to be fair use. Indeed, Judge Alsup held: “The technology at issue was among the most transformative many of us will see in our lifetimes.“
Factor 1: Judge Alsup assumed, for the purposes of the motion, that the LLMs memorized all training copies. Nonetheless, the Judge still found a transformative purpose given that no allegedly infringing outputs were made: “Instead, Authors challenge only the inputs, not the outputs, of these LLMs. They point to the fully trained LLMs and the Claude service only to shed light on how training itself uses copies of their works and the ways the Claude service could be used to produce still other works that would compete with their works. This order does the same. Authors’ arguments that the training use is not transformative are unavailing.
“First, Authors argue that using works to train Claude’s underlying LLMs was like using works to train any person to read and write, so Authors should be able to exclude Anthropic from this use (Opp. 16). But Authors cannot rightly exclude anyone from using their works for training or learning as such. Everyone reads texts, too, then writes new texts. They may need to pay for getting their hands on a text in the first instance. But to make anyone pay specifically for the use of a book each time they read it, each time they recall it from memory, each time they later draw upon it when writing new things in new ways would be unthinkable. For centuries, we have read and re-read books. We have admired, memorized, and internalized their sweeping themes, their substantive points, and their stylistic solutions to recurring writing problems.
“Second, to that last point, Authors further argue that the training was intended to memorize their works’ creative elements — not just their works’ non-protectable ones (Opp. 17). But this is the same argument. Again, Anthropic’s LLMs have not reproduced to the public a given work’s creative elements, nor even one author’s identifiable expressive style (assuming arguendo that these are even copyrightable). Yes, Claude has outputted grammar, composition, and style that the underlying LLM distilled from thousands of works. But if someone were to read all the modern-day classics because of their exceptional expression, memorize them, and then emulate a blend of their best writing, would that violate the Copyright Act? Of course not. Copyright does not extend to “method[s] of operation, concept[s], [or] principle[s]” “illustrated[ ] or embodied in [a] work.” 17 U.S.C. § 102(b); see, e.g., Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corp., 45 F.2d 119, 120–22 (2d Cir. 1930) (Judge Learned Hand) (stage properties and storytelling elements); Apple Comput., Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., 35 F.3d 1435, 1445 (9th Cir. 1994) (“user-friendly” design principles and elements); Swirsky v. Carey, 376 F.3d 841, 848 (9th Cir. 2004) (music theory principles and chord progressions).
“Third, Authors next argue that computers nonetheless should not be allowed to do what people do. Authors cite a decision seeming to say as much (Opp. 16–17). But the judge there twice emphasized while discussing “purpose and character” of the use that what was trained was “not generative AI (AI that writes new content itself).” Rather, what was trained — using a proprietary system for finding court opinions in response to a given legal topic — was a competing AI tool for finding court opinions in response to a given legal topic. That was not transformative. Thomson Reuters Enter. Centre GmbH v. Ross Intell. Inc., 765 F. Supp. 3d 382, 398 (D. Del. 2025) (Judge Stephanos Bibas), appeal docketed, No. 25-8018 (3d Cir. Apr. 14, 2025).
“A better analogue to our facts would be an AI tool trained — using court opinions, and briefs, law review articles, and the like — to receive legal prompts and respond with fresh legal writing. And, on facts much like those, a different court came out the other way. It found fair use. White v. W. Pub. Corp., 29 F. Supp. 3d 396, 400 (S.D.N.Y. 2014) (Judge Jed Rakoff).
“The latter use stood sufficiently “orthogonal” to anything that any copyright owner rightly could expect to control. See Warhol, 598 U.S. at 538–40. It could thus be freed up for the copyist to use, “promot[ing] the progress of science and the arts, without diminishing the incentive to create.” Id. at 531 (emphasis added); see U.S. CONST. art. I, § 8, cl. 8.
“In short, the purpose and character of using copyrighted works to train LLMs to generate new text was quintessentially transformative. Like any reader aspiring to be a writer, Anthropic’s LLMs trained upon works not to race ahead and replicate or supplant them — but to turn a hard corner and create something different. If this training process reasonably required making copies within the LLM or otherwise, those copies were engaged in a transformative use.”
Judge Alsup also rejected the market dilution theory under Factor 4:
“Instead, Authors contend generically that training LLMs will result in an explosion of works competing with their works — such as by creating alternative summaries of factual events, alternative examples of compelling writing about fictional events, and so on. This order assumes that is so (Opp. 22–23 (citing, e.g., Opp. Exh. 38)). But Authors’ complaint is no different than it would be if they complained that training schoolchildren to write well would result in an explosion of competing works. This is not the kind of competitive or creative displacement that concerns the Copyright Act. The Act seeks to advance original works of authorship, not to protect authors against competition. Sega, 977 F.2d at 1523–24.
“Authors next contend that training LLMs displaced (or will) an emerging market for licensing their works for the narrow purpose of training LLMs (Opp. 21–22). Anthropic argues that transactional costs would exceed Anthropic’s expected benefit from any such bargain, prompting it to cease dealing with any rightsholders or else to cease developing such technology altogether (Br. 22–23). Our record could support either account — so this order must assume Authors are correct. A market could develop (Opp. 19–21 (citing record)). Even so, such a market for that use is not one the Copyright Act entitles Authors to exploit.”
“None of the cases cited by Authors requires a different result. All contemplated losses of something the Copyright Act properly protected — not the kinds of fair uses for which a copyright owner cannot rightly expect to control. See TVEyes, Inc., 883 F.3d at 181 (use of a right legally reserved to and factually already being licensed by copyright owner); Texaco, 60 F.3d 931 (same); Ringgold v. BET, Inc., 126 F.3d 70, 80–81 (2d Cir. 1997) (use of a right legally reserved to and factually likely to be marketable by copyright owner — displaying images of her artistic work in television shows); cf. Seltzer v. Green Day, Inc., 725 F.3d 1170, 1179 (9th Cir. 2013) (no evidence use could be or “was likely to” be marketable).
“The fourth factor thus favors fair use for the training copies.”
the judge’s CONCLUSION
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