In a ruling issued Monday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín approved a $1.5 billion settlement by Anthropic to authors and creators over AI training. The settlement covers copyright owners of books that Anthropic downloaded from the online libraries LibGen and PiLiMi. The fund is non-reversionary, and eligible works are expected to receive about $3,000 each before fees and costs, roughly four times the minimum statutory damages typically awarded for ordinary copyright infringement. More than 91% of eligible works had already been claimed by April 2026, while only 350 valid opt-out requests were submitted. Under the agreement, Anthropic must destroy the original pirated copies of books it obtained from LibGen and PiLiMi, subject to legal preservation requirements. The settlement does not prevent authors from bringing future claims over AI-generated outputs or future conduct. The judge reduced the attorneys' fee award from the requested $187.5 million to about $101.6 million, or nearly 6.8% of the settlement fund, along with reimbursement of about $2.6 million in litigation expenses and $15,000 service awards for each of the three class representatives.