Judge Rules AI Training on Books Is Fair Use

Judge William Alsup ruled that Anthropic’s use of published books to train its AI models qualifies as fair use.

This is the first federal court decision supporting a fair use defense for AI companies using copyrighted materials in large language model training.

The ruling represents a setback for authors, artists, and publishers suing AI firms over copyright infringement.

A separate trial will address the legality and damages related to Anthropic’s use of pirated book copies in its “central library.”