Anthropic’s book-copyright fight splits copying from destruction, with 7 million books and a $1.5B settlement

alex_verem · x · 2026-07-29

Anthropic’s book-copyright dispute highlights a striking legal split: the company relied on first-sale rights to justify destroying legally purchased books, while settling the copying of 7 million books taken from pirate libraries for $1.5 billion.

The post argues the law punished the copying but left the destruction untouched, and questions whether first-sale doctrine is broken here or simply being tested at a scale nobody has closely watched before.

Related event: AI Firms Face Backlash Over Destroying Books for Training Data(23 posts)→

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