The two stories in this round-up feature the Association of American Publishers. Nonetheless, both are relevant for indie authors, in the US certainly and quite possibly elsewhere. First up is possibly a major breakthrough in the Anthropic AI case. The headlines vary. At the time of writing, Publishing Perspectives is leading with “A Potential Settlement.” TechCrunch, meanwhile, has “Anthropic Settles…”
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
The actual court document certainly looks as though the latter may be more up to date. Anthropic and the plaintiffs bringing the case against it have asked for the hearings in the case to be put into abeyance because they have agreed to memorialize the terms of a settlement, as the document puts it.
There are as yet no details of what that settlement may be, but the tenor of the request seems to be that there’s no point going through a long and complex court case because the parties have sorted things out already.
What Happens Next
What remains to be seen now are the terms of that settlement. And, of course, just who gets to be counted as part of the class entitled to be a part of the settlement. As Maria Pallante of AAP notes, this class includes both authors and publishers.
Guidance for Authors
This does not, I believe, mean that it is too late to register interest in being part of the class. To answer a question posed by one of our readers, per Victoria Strauss, there seems no reason why non-US citizens should not be part of the class provided they meet the requirements (including registration).
As our reader noted, the form on the website of Leif, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein is set up for US addresses, but the only actual constraint is that you have to fill in a state. I would imagine that you can make a note that you have done this in one of the free-text boxes—though obviously, that is not official advice.
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