As you may know, many authors worldwide have had their works plagiarised by AI platforms in the recent years. They have been using our books, having downloaded them from pirate sites like Library Genesis (LibGen) and Pirate Library Mirror (PiLiMi), to train their AI.
Without any legislation in place regarding plagiarism by AI, there hasn’t been anything we authors could do to protect our copyrights. But things are slowly starting to change.
Anthropic is the first AI platform that has agreed to pay compensation to the authors whose works they have plagiarised. A total of $1.5 billion. They used both LibGen and PiLiMi to download pirated books by the thousands.
If you’re a writer, keep reading, as I am about to tell you where you can check if your books are on the Anthropic Settlement list, and if so, how you can claim compensation. I will also give you 3 pirate sites where you can see if your books are being pirated!
My own experience started last month when an author friend told me that an AI platform called Anthropic plagiarised 2 of my books. She said a US court made a settlement with them for all the affected authors worldwide to be compensated.
Naturally, I was very dubious at first. What if my friend had looked into nothing more than another online scam and this wasn’t true?
But then, I searched online, and asked a few of my savvy author friends. All of them knew about it, and all those who had books on the list had already made their claims. One is a largely seasoned author, a member of The Writers Guild of America, and he said they had been the ones to inform him of this. Needless to say, this particular testimonial made me sure that this is legit 100%!
This envelope arrived here in Greece by post the other day. It is from the US court that handles the case and contains all the information about the settlement. I am posting the envelope especially for you, fellow author, so you can see this is real and make your claim before the dealine, which is March 30.
Please note: To be compensated, you need to have registered your book(s) with the US Library of Congress close to their publication.
The compensation per book will be a minimum of 3,000 USD depending on how many authors claim, as Anthropic has already agreed to the total amount they are paying out ($1.5 billion). Thus, it will be divided equally among all the authors/publishers who make a claim. Legal fees and other expenses will be deducted from the compensations before the wire transfers are made.
A final approval hearing is scheduled for April 23, 2026 to decide if the settlement will be approved or not.
Go here and see if your books are on the list of plagiarised books – search by author name: https://secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup
Again, please note that on this list you will only find plagiarised books that have been registered with The US Library of Congress.
If you never did that, perhaps your books were still plagiarised, but you won’t find them on this list, and you won’t be able to make a claim with the court.
Whether you find your books on there or not, please consider searching for a bunch of your author friends on the site and let them know if you find their names on there. They will be very grateful to be informed.
Claim Forms must be submitted by March 30, 2026.
It will cost you nothing to make a claim. As stated earlier, legal fees and other expenses will be taken from your compensation total before it is sent to you. All information you need to know is on that same website I just shared. I advise you to read the FAQs before submitting your claim, as they will clarify all your questions before you fill in the online form.
If you self-publish, make sure to declare yourself as the ‘sole owner’ as this means the compensation will be paid fully to you. If you have a publisher you have to declare this as then the compensation will be split fifty-fifty between you and the publisher for the specific book. Same thing if you declare co-authors. The payment will be split equally among all the authors of the book.
If you’re on the list, I urge you to make your claim, and I wish us all good luck! I have every confidence that, via our claims, we authors will give AI platforms a lesson they will not forget! Undoubtedly, this case will set a strong precedent for future similar cases in courts and will become a warning to other AI platforms to keep off our works without our permission!
I believe I speak on behalf of all authors–especially indies that tend to fight all their battles alone–when I say that we owe a lot of respect and are very grateful to authors Andrea Bartz (We Were Never Here), Charles Graeber (The Good Nurse) and Kirk Wallace Johnson (The Feather Thief) for starting this David-against-Goliath fight in court that, in time, came to include the whole author community worldwide. You are superstars and we thank you!
PIRATE SITES, AHOY!
Surely, AI platforms like Anthropic and META cannot be the only ones that have used pirate sites to download books and use them to train their AI.
Here below, you will find 3 pirate sites that you may want to check out. It’s safe to get on there and search for your author name.
I found many of my books on the first one. Even my most recent publications are on there.
https://annas-archive.pm (“Anna’s Archive” includes search data from PiLiMi that was mentioned earlier)
https://z-lib.id
https://libgen.homes/
Seeing so many of my books being pirated, sure makes me think that my choice not to appy DRM inside KDP may not be such a good idea, after all. Especially now that Amazon allows readers to download the books in PDF or EPUB format if DRM is not applied! This means any pirate can get my book for little to no money when on offer and then exploit it to their (sick) heart’s content.
I don’t know about you, but I am changing my DRM option to YES, at least for my recent publications, and for every future one too, and I don’t care if the readers find it inconvenient. They’ll just have to use the kindle app to read on any device if they don’t have a kindle. I can read my kindle books on my computer, on my tablet and on my phone. It’s not hard!
I am also going to register with The Library of Congress every future full novel or novella, and I urge you to do the same. There is a fee, of course, but with AI platforms now plagiarising literary works at large, it seems to me to be money well-spent. Here is the site for more information.
As for my books that are already on the pirate sites, I’ve decided I am not going to take any action. Within the indie community, it has been widely known for years that, believe it or not, having your books pirated is actually a good thing as it helps with exposure. Oddly enough, piracy does work for us indies that forever strive to rise above all the noise.
But I do draw the line on an AI platform duplicating my content inside AI-written books, and if I get an opportunity to make a claim with other authors against any given one of these, you bet I will.
Beware: Legal firms are now aware at large of the Bartz vs Anthropic settlement, and they are contacting authors asking them to make a claim via themselves. This may be for Anthropic or any other AI platform, such as META, that has also used pirated books to train its AI (using LibGen).
If anyone asks you to make a claim against Anthropic, it makes sense to use the official site I gave you above as the settlement case is already in place and it costs nothing to claim.
But if any site (or alleged legal firm) alerts you on another copyright infringement case, it makes sense for you to do your due dilligence. Be sure to check the pirate site they mention in order to confirm that your book is really pirated on there.
I fear scammers will have a field trip posing as legal firms soon, so make sure you’re talking to real legal companies, and whatever you do, don’t part with any money, and don’t send your manuscripts to them if they ask you.
I am not a lawyer, thus not authorised to give any legal advice. I am just an indie author, but I always follow my common sense.
Personally, I would never pay a legal company upfront for a case of plagiarism of my works. I would only accept to make a claim if they offer to pay me any resulting compensation minus their fees and expenses–the latter to be applied only if the case is won.
Finally, here are two sites where you can take action against AI platforms now. The first one is sponsored by The Authors Guild:
https://actionnetwork.org/letters/authors-guild-author-letters-to-ai-companies
https://societyofauthors.org/2025/03/21/the-libgen-data-set-what-authors-can-do/
That’s it, folks, regarding our stolen copyrights, pirates and AI… None of these are favorite things of mine (LOL), but I hope I have helped you somewhat to understand what’s going on and what you can do if you have been affected.
Feel free to leave a comment and share your own experience, especially if you have something to add that would help others.
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