Anthropic's Request to Delay AI Copyright Trial Denied

Anthropic has been denied a request to delay a groundbreaking trial set for December, which will address whether the company is liable for billions in damages for using pirated books to train its AI models. This decision was reported by Bloomberg Law.

The US District Court for the Northern District of California rejected Anthropic's attempt to pause the lawsuit, emphasizing that the current record does not resolve key factual issues. Judge William Alsup noted that Anthropic has not clarified which pirated works were used and why they were retained after the company transitioned to purchasing and scanning books.

The court had previously ruled that training AI on copyrighted works could be considered fair use, but left the piracy issue to be decided by a jury. Anthropic sought to appeal this decision and the class certification of authors whose books were included in the pirated libraries. However, the judge argued that an appeal would be more informed after the trial concludes, potentially exposing Anthropic to significant financial liability.