There would be no Claude without training data. None of these authors consented to their works being stolen, and there is no recourse to get their works unstolen.
If their works are so insignificant to Claude, just remove them from Claude and retrain. It's that simple. Claude is 100% the product of the works that were stolen, just as much as it is the product of the software developers and investors.
All the employees just got a million dollar bonus. The authors spent their entire lives up to the point of publishing each work refining their ideas, investing in education and experiences that allowed them to create their works that were stolen. If the result of that theft is a massive wealth-building AI machine, it makes sense that they should benefit from the ongoing use of their work.
Anthropic had a chance at licensing these works the standard way, and chose to skip it. Do you think the consequences of this should be that under court order they receive money that is likely the same or less than they would have negotiated had Anthropic not stolen from them?
Why would anyone hesitate to steal other publications if their only punishment is that on the off-chamce they get caught, they have to pay what they would have anyway? That's the ridiculous assertion.
> 100-1000x the value of their books
They would be getting 5% the value of their books. Claude without those books is nothing. Take all the books away from Claude and you can understand the true value they contributed.
