01 Your words
Plain versionBack to the room
The exhibit is still arriving. It will wake when all of it is here.
1 of 7 The rope
“The velvet rope is the terms of service.”
2 of 7 The label
01
Your words
The Great Ingestion How AI Ate the Internet and Called It Fair Use
The internet was the first course.
The record begins:
Reported In June 2025 the judge in the authors’ lawsuit against Anthropic opened his order: “An artificial intelligence firm downloaded for free millions of copyrighted books in digital form from pirate sites on the internet. The firm also purchased copyrighted books,” cut them up and scanned them.
Decided training ruled fair use; the downloads “left for trial”
Settled “has not gone to trial”
The fine print
1.01 Reported Order on Fair Use, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. C 24-05417 WHA (Dkt. 231), introduction U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (stamped copy in CourtListener's RECAP archive) · June 23, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
The court-approved notice sums up the June 2025 ruling. The court “ruled that using the books to train AI models was fair use and therefore not a violation of the Copyright Act but left for trial the question whether downloading and use of works from LibGen and PiLiMi was fair use.”
1.02 Decided Notice of $1.5 Billion Proposed Class Action Settlement Between Authors & Publishers and Anthropic PBC (long-form notice, deadlines updated 27 January 2026), question 4 Authorised by the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California; issued by the settlement administrator, JND Legal Administration · January 27, 2026 · as of October 13, 2026
The Anthropic case was settled, not tried. The court-approved notice says: “The lawsuit has not gone to trial, and the Court has not decided in favor of the Named Plaintiffs or Anthropic. Instead, the Class Representatives and Anthropic have agreed to settle the Action.”
1.03 Settled Notice of $1.5 Billion Proposed Class Action Settlement Between Authors & Publishers and Anthropic PBC (long-form notice, deadlines updated 27 January 2026), question 4 Authorised by the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California; issued by the settlement administrator, JND Legal Administration · January 27, 2026 · as of October 13, 2026
Four questions. The record answers in its own words.
Asked?
Reported “without plaintiffs’ authorization”
The fine print
The judge wrote that the authors who sued Anthropic had agreed to none of the copying: “All of Anthropic’s copying was without plaintiffs’ authorization.”
1.04 Reported Order on Fair Use, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. C 24-05417 WHA (Dkt. 231) U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (stamped copy in CourtListener's RECAP archive) · June 23, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
The June 2025 order dates the downloads to 2021 and 2022. In spring 2024, it says, the person Anthropic had hired to find it books “sent an email or two to major publishers to inquire into licensing books for training AI,” then “let those conversations wither.”
1.05 Reported Order on Fair Use, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. C 24-05417 WHA (Dkt. 231), statement of facts U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (stamped copy in CourtListener's RECAP archive) · June 23, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
Paid?
Reported “paid nothing” for the downloaded copies
Settled $1.5 billion, to settle
The fine print
On the authors’ version of the facts, which the judge accepted for this ruling before any trial, Anthropic “downloaded over seven million pirated copies of books, paid nothing, and kept these pirated copies in its library.”
1.06 Reported Order on Fair Use, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. C 24-05417 WHA (Dkt. 231) U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (stamped copy in CourtListener's RECAP archive) · June 23, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion, plus interest, into a settlement fund. Class members with approved claims are to be paid from it, after the costs and lawyers’ fees the court allows. The agreement says no money paid in goes back to the company unless the settlement itself is terminated.
1.07 Settled Class Action Settlement Agreement, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 363-3), sections 1.34, 1.35 and 2.1 The parties; filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy on the court-authorised settlement website) · September 5, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
The June 2025 order says Anthropic “spent many millions of dollars to purchase millions of print books, often in used condition,” then had them cut from their bindings and scanned, “discarding the paper originals.” On this the judge ruled for Anthropic: “the mere format change was a fair use.”
1.08 Decided Order on Fair Use, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. C 24-05417 WHA (Dkt. 231) U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (stamped copy in CourtListener's RECAP archive) · June 23, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
In the Anthropic settlement neither side concedes whether the company acted lawfully: class members “are not agreeing Anthropic acted lawfully,” and “Anthropic is not agreeing that it acted unlawfully.”
1.09 Settled Class Action Settlement Agreement, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 363-3), sections 10.6 and 10.7 The parties; filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy on the court-authorised settlement website) · September 5, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
Told?
Decided by official notice to the class
The fine print
The court’s final order says the official notice to the class was sent by mail and email to rights holders: 594,945 potential class members, tied to 99.98 percent of the works on the settlement’s list. It was not returned as undeliverable for 506,194 of them, tied to 99.5 percent of the works.
1.10 Decided Order Granting Final Approval of Class Action Settlement, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 680), part A.1 U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy on the court-authorised settlement website) · July 20, 2026 · as of October 13, 2026
The court-approved notice explains why about 7 million downloaded files did not become 7 million listed works: “About 40% of the files Anthropic downloaded (approximately 3 million) were duplicates,” and only registered works qualify: “Many of the works Anthropic downloaded were not registered.”
1.11 Reported Notice of $1.5 Billion Proposed Class Action Settlement Between Authors & Publishers and Anthropic PBC (long-form notice, deadlines updated 27 January 2026), question 52 Authorised by the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California; issued by the settlement administrator, JND Legal Administration · January 27, 2026 · as of October 13, 2026
Shared?
Settled “does not constitute, in any respect, a license”
The fine print
The Anthropic settlement agreement says its release “does not constitute, in any respect, a license to torrent, scan, or train AI models on any copyrighted works, or to create infringing outputs from AI models.”
1.12 Settled Class Action Settlement Agreement, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 363-3), section 1.29 The parties; filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy on the court-authorised settlement website) · September 5, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
3 of 7 The number
How much for each book on the list, before lawyers’ fees and costs? Guess first.
You guessed
Decided about $3,100 a listed work, before fees
Estimated first payment planned from the fund so far: $2,203.56 a work
Pending first payments expected “on or before November 15, 2026”
The fine print
Before costs and fees, the Anthropic settlement comes to about $3,100 for each work, the judge who gave it preliminary approval wrote: “Because 482,460 works were finally identified, not 500,000, the total per work is about $3,100.”
$1,500,000,000 ÷ 482,460 works = $3,109.07 per work$1,500,000,000 ÷ 500,000 works = $3,000 per work1.13 Decided Memorandum Opinion on Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 437) U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy on the court-authorised settlement website) · October 17, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
The class’s lawyers told the court on September 2, 2026, that the Anthropic settlement’s first payment “should amount to $2,203.56” for each claimed work, after fees and costs, with the company’s last $450 million plus interest still to come.
about $1,083,000,000 expected − $71,092,777.70 − $2,635,197.46 − $45,000 − $18,220,000 = about $991,007,024.84about $991,007,024.84 ÷ 449,731 claimed works = $2,203.56 per work1.14 Estimated Status Report (Class Counsel), Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. 4:24-cv-05417-AMO (Dkt. 688) Class Counsel (Susman Godfrey; Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein), filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy in CourtListener's RECAP archive) · September 2, 2026 · as of October 13, 2026
As of October 13, 2026, the Anthropic settlement’s administrator says the first payments are still to come: “We currently expect to send the first round of payments on or before November 15, 2026,” for works whose claimants do not disagree about the split and have given all the information required.
1.15 Pending Anthropic Copyright Settlement Website, home page: “Current Status of the Settlement” and “Payments” JND Legal Administration, the court-appointed settlement administrator · October 13, 2026 · as of October 13, 2026
The Anthropic settlement pays by the work, not by the author or publisher. The court-approved notice says “the per-work award may be split among all owners, including, for example, between an author and publisher.”
1.16 Settled Notice of $1.5 Billion Proposed Class Action Settlement Between Authors & Publishers and Anthropic PBC (long-form notice, deadlines updated 27 January 2026), pages 1 and 6 Authorised by the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California; issued by the settlement administrator, JND Legal Administration · January 27, 2026 · as of October 13, 2026
The court-approved notice explains why about 7 million downloaded files did not become 7 million listed works: “About 40% of the files Anthropic downloaded (approximately 3 million) were duplicates,” and only registered works qualify: “Many of the works Anthropic downloaded were not registered.”
1.11 Reported Notice of $1.5 Billion Proposed Class Action Settlement Between Authors & Publishers and Anthropic PBC (long-form notice, deadlines updated 27 January 2026), question 52 Authorised by the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California; issued by the settlement administrator, JND Legal Administration · January 27, 2026 · as of October 13, 2026
The judge who gave the Anthropic settlement preliminary approval set it beside a trial: a win “could vary from $150,000 per work down to $200 per work,” “a loss would result in no recourse,” and about $3,000 a work, before costs and fees, is “four times the statutory minimum for ordinary infringement.”
1.17 Decided Memorandum Opinion on Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 437) U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy on the court-authorised settlement website) · October 17, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
The class’s lawyers told the court on September 2, 2026, that two appeals were filed “by counsel who had been excluded from the fee award” and “relate solely to the Fee Award.” One objector, they said, mailed a request to appeal that “is not a notice of appeal”; a notice from that objector “would be untimely.”
1.18 Pending Status Report (Class Counsel), Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. 4:24-cv-05417-AMO (Dkt. 688) Class Counsel (Susman Godfrey; Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein), filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy in CourtListener's RECAP archive) · September 2, 2026 · as of October 13, 2026
4 of 7 Their side
The company’s position, in the record’s own words. Where a court agreed with it, the label says so.
Reported “approach to training AI models constitutes fair use”
Reported “denies that it did anything wrong”
The fine print
When the deal was announced, Anthropic’s deputy general counsel said, as quoted by NBC News, that the June ruling found the company’s “approach to training AI models constitutes fair use” and that the settlement would “resolve the plaintiffs’ remaining legacy claims.”
1.19 Reported AI company Anthropic agrees to pay $1.5B to settle lawsuit with authors (by Daniel Arkin) NBC News · September 5, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
The notice the court approved for authors and publishers states Anthropic’s position: “Anthropic denies all the allegations and denies that it did anything wrong. Anthropic argues that its use of the downloaded datasets was fair use.”
1.20 Reported Notice of $1.5 Billion Proposed Class Action Settlement Between Authors & Publishers and Anthropic PBC (long-form notice, deadlines updated 27 January 2026), question 2 Authorised by the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California; issued by the settlement administrator, JND Legal Administration · January 27, 2026 · as of October 13, 2026
In the settlement agreement Anthropic states that “neither the LibGen or PiLiMi datasets, nor any portions of those datasets, were in the training corpus of any of its commercially released large language models.”
1.21 Reported Class Action Settlement Agreement, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 363-3), section 3.1 The parties; filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy on the court-authorised settlement website) · September 5, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
The June 2025 order says parts of the pirated collections went into training Anthropic’s models: “different sets or ‘subsets’ or ‘parts of’ or ‘portions’ of the collections sourced from Books3, LibGen, and PiLiMi were used to train different LLMs.”
1.22 Reported Order on Fair Use, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. C 24-05417 WHA (Dkt. 231) U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (stamped copy in CourtListener's RECAP archive) · June 23, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
Decided “the training use was a fair use”
Decided “the mere format change was a fair use”
The fine print
On training, the judge ruled for Anthropic: “This order grants summary judgment for Anthropic that the training use was a fair use.” He called the technology “among the most transformative many of us will see in our lifetimes.”
1.23 Decided Order on Fair Use, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. C 24-05417 WHA (Dkt. 231), overall analysis and conclusion U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (stamped copy in CourtListener's RECAP archive) · June 23, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
The June 2025 order says Anthropic “spent many millions of dollars to purchase millions of print books, often in used condition,” then had them cut from their bindings and scanned, “discarding the paper originals.” On this the judge ruled for Anthropic: “the mere format change was a fair use.”
1.08 Decided Order on Fair Use, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. C 24-05417 WHA (Dkt. 231) U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (stamped copy in CourtListener's RECAP archive) · June 23, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
In a separate case in June 2025, another federal judge ruled for Meta against thirteen authors: “on this record, Meta is entitled to summary judgment on its fair use defense to the claim that copying these plaintiffs’ books for use as LLM training data was infringement.”
1.24 Decided Order Denying the Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment and Granting Meta’s Cross-Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 23-cv-03417-VC (Dkt. 598) U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (stamped copy in CourtListener's RECAP archive) · June 25, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
The Meta judge limited his own ruling. It “does not stand for the proposition that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful,” he wrote, and it “only affects the rights of these thirteen authors.”
1.25 Decided Order Denying the Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment and Granting Meta’s Cross-Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 23-cv-03417-VC (Dkt. 598) U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (stamped copy in CourtListener's RECAP archive) · June 25, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
5 of 7 What fair looks like
What has been ruled, agreed and left open so far. Each line carries the exact word for where it stands.
Decided “Every factor points against fair use.”
Decided “at least not on the summary judgment record”
Settled “has not gone to trial”
The fine print
On the downloaded copies the judge denied Anthropic’s request and set a trial: “The downloaded pirated copies used to build a central library were not justified by a fair use. Every factor points against fair use.”
1.26 Decided Order on Fair Use, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. C 24-05417 WHA (Dkt. 231) U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (stamped copy in CourtListener's RECAP archive) · June 23, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
In October 2025 the Anthropic judge spelled out the footing of his ruling on the downloads: “not a fair use, at least not on the summary judgment record,” where “all factual disputes and inferences were drawn in plaintiffs’ favor.” At trial, “plaintiffs would need to prove all facts before a jury.”
1.27 Decided Memorandum Opinion on Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 437), part B(i) U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy on the court-authorised settlement website) · October 17, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
The Anthropic case was settled, not tried. The court-approved notice says: “The lawsuit has not gone to trial, and the Court has not decided in favor of the Named Plaintiffs or Anthropic. Instead, the Class Representatives and Anthropic have agreed to settle the Action.”
1.03 Settled Notice of $1.5 Billion Proposed Class Action Settlement Between Authors & Publishers and Anthropic PBC (long-form notice, deadlines updated 27 January 2026), question 4 Authorised by the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California; issued by the settlement administrator, JND Legal Administration · January 27, 2026 · as of October 13, 2026
The court-approved notice sums up the June 2025 ruling. The court “ruled that using the books to train AI models was fair use and therefore not a violation of the Copyright Act but left for trial the question whether downloading and use of works from LibGen and PiLiMi was fair use.”
1.02 Decided Notice of $1.5 Billion Proposed Class Action Settlement Between Authors & Publishers and Anthropic PBC (long-form notice, deadlines updated 27 January 2026), question 4 Authorised by the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California; issued by the settlement administrator, JND Legal Administration · January 27, 2026 · as of October 13, 2026
Settled $1.5 billion, to settle
Decided “fair, reasonable, and adequate”
The fine print
Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion, plus interest, into a settlement fund. Class members with approved claims are to be paid from it, after the costs and lawyers’ fees the court allows. The agreement says no money paid in goes back to the company unless the settlement itself is terminated.
1.07 Settled Class Action Settlement Agreement, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 363-3), sections 1.34, 1.35 and 2.1 The parties; filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy on the court-authorised settlement website) · September 5, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
On July 20, 2026, Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted the Anthropic settlement final approval, finding it “fair, reasonable, and adequate,” entered final judgment and closed the case.
1.28 Decided Order Granting Final Approval of Class Action Settlement; Granting in Part Motion for Attorney’s Fees, Reimbursement of Expenses, and Plaintiff Service Awards; Judgment, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 680) U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy on the court-authorised settlement website) · July 20, 2026 · as of October 13, 2026
In the Anthropic settlement neither side concedes whether the company acted lawfully: class members “are not agreeing Anthropic acted lawfully,” and “Anthropic is not agreeing that it acted unlawfully.”
1.09 Settled Class Action Settlement Agreement, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 363-3), sections 10.6 and 10.7 The parties; filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy on the court-authorised settlement website) · September 5, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
The judge who gave the Anthropic settlement preliminary approval called it “the largest copyright class action settlement in history.”
1.29 Decided Memorandum Opinion on Preliminary Approval of Class Action Settlement, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 437) U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy on the court-authorised settlement website) · October 17, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
The class’s lawyers told the court on September 2, 2026, that two appeals were filed “by counsel who had been excluded from the fee award” and “relate solely to the Fee Award.” One objector, they said, mailed a request to appeal that “is not a notice of appeal”; a notice from that objector “would be untimely.”
1.18 Pending Status Report (Class Counsel), Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. 4:24-cv-05417-AMO (Dkt. 688) Class Counsel (Susman Godfrey; Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein), filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy in CourtListener's RECAP archive) · September 2, 2026 · as of October 13, 2026
Settled agreed: destroy the files from the two libraries
The fine print
The settlement requires Anthropic to “destroy all the original files of works torrented/downloaded from Library Genesis or Pirate Library Mirror, and any copies that originate from the torrented copies,” within 30 days of final judgment, except where a legal preservation duty or a court order says otherwise.
1.30 Settled Class Action Settlement Agreement, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 363-3), section 2.2 The parties; filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy on the court-authorised settlement website) · September 5, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
Settled claims over AI output: not released
The fine print
The Anthropic settlement releases only past claims about the works on its list. It says “no claims based on the output of AI models are released,” and it does not reach “any activity or conduct that occurs or occurred after August 25, 2025.”
1.31 Settled Class Action Settlement Agreement, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 363-3), section 1.29 The parties; filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy on the court-authorised settlement website) · September 5, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
The Anthropic settlement agreement says its release “does not constitute, in any respect, a license to torrent, scan, or train AI models on any copyrighted works, or to create infringing outputs from AI models.”
1.12 Settled Class Action Settlement Agreement, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC (Dkt. 363-3), section 1.29 The parties; filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (copy on the court-authorised settlement website) · September 5, 2025 · as of October 13, 2026
6 of 7 The stamp
Yours to give. There is no right answer, and the museum keeps no count.
In the room, this is where you stamp your ticket with one of five stamps. The plain version asks nothing of you.
Kept on this device only. Nothing is sent.
7 of 7 Three doors
Three ways on. All three lead to the series’ own site.
From the book · The Great IngestionI used to hold your pages together. AI prefers holding them without asking.