As if this semester hasn’t been weird enough, I got this email from a colleague on Monday:

In case you hadn’t seen this, Anthropic is being sued for copyright infringement.  Two of your books were swept up by them, and you are entitled to file a claim for damages: https://www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/ 

Abiding by the “if your mother says she loves you, go check it out rule,”  I did a search on the site and found that he was right.

I’m honored that someone considers my work worthy of theft…

It’s Doctor of Paper 2, AI Pirates 0, apparently:

In one of the largest copyright settlements involving generative artificial intelligence, Anthropic AI, a leading company in the generative AI space, has agreed to pay $1.5 billion to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by a group of authors.

<SNIP>

The settlement, which U.S. Senior District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco will consider approving next week, is in a case that involved the first substantive decision on how fair use applies to generative AI systems. It also suggests an inflection point in the ongoing legal fights between the creative industries and the AI companies accused of illegally using artistic works to train the large language models that underpin their widely-used AI systems.

BACKGROUND: Anthropic trained its AI using a ton of content, including a boatload of books and other copyrighted material. In the case of things that were open to the public or properly purchased, this was apparently fine, based on the “fair use” doctrine associated with copyright.

The argument the lawyers for Anthropic made was that the training of AI on these books was a transformative effort, meaning that the books themselves were changed into something else entirely through this process. Transformative acts have often been protected as fair use for years and it’s why Google could digitize books as part of a search-engine service and Andy Warhol could present Campbell’s soup cans to the world.

(It’s also why Roy Orbison is likely spinning in his grave over 2 Live Crew’s version of “Oh, Pretty Woman” or why we get thumbnail images before clicking on a link to visit “Perfect 10” magazine, so maybe it hasn’t always been the greatest of things… )

That worked for a lot of the content they fed the AI beast, but unfortunately some of the stuff they fed it came from sites that pirated copies of texts:

(The judge) also found that Anthropic had illegally acquired millions of books through online libraries like Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror that many tech companies have used to supplement the huge amounts of digital text needed to train A.I. technologies. When Anthropic downloaded these libraries, the judge ruled, its executives knew they contained pirated books.

Anthropic could have purchased the books from many sellers, the judge said, but instead preferred to “steal” them to avoid what the company’s chief executive, Dario Amodei, called “legal/practice/business slog” in court documents. Companies and individuals who willfully infringe on copyright can face significantly higher damages — up to $150,000 per work — than those who are not aware they are breaking the law.

If this dude thought getting the books the legal way was a “slog,” he should try writing a book once…

In any case, I reached out to Sage and they are on this, noting I should be getting a letter or email from them to explain what to do and how to fill out a claim form. News stories noted that authors could get up to $3,000 per text, but I’m pretty darned certain there’s no way I’m getting that.

Sage is really the aggrieved party in this, given that the folks there put in the “slog” to get this book built, shipped, marketed and in the stores in time for the Christmas rush. There’s a mention of royalty percentages, so I might get like 5-10% or whatever of whatever the actual amount is. Then again, I might get nothing.

That said, let’s do the thing we all do when we buy that Mega-Millions ticket: Plan to spend money we might never get…

FUN WITH MONEY: As I noted on the “About” page, comedian John Oliver is my spirit guide in everything I do here. One of the things I love most about “Last Week Tonight” is when Oliver does something incredibly weird to sponsor something he finds particularly important.

It’s why he bought Russell Crowe’s leather jockstrap from the movie “Cinderella Man” and stationed it in one of the last remaining Blockbuster Video stores in the country. It’s why he wrote a book about Vice President Mike Pence’s pet rabbit (Marlon Bundo) and turned it into a fundraiser for the Trevor Project and AIDS United. He even managed to buy the website “John Oliver’s Junk” and use it for an auction that raised more than $1.5 million to support public broadcasting.

I’m sure I lack that kind of star power and I might end up getting $50 and a ham sandwich out of this, at best. Still, not for nothing, but Oliver’s weird fundraising efforts got a Koala Chlamydia Ward named after him, so let’s reach for the stars on this one…

Here’s the deal: Whatever I get, I’ll see if Sage would be willing to match it. Then, whatever we scrape together, we’re gonna do something with it that you think is fun, weird, good or all three and more.

Either post below or use the contact form on the website to tell me what you want me to do with my pirate’s booty, whatever of that I actually get.

A few thoughts came to mind already:

• A Cameo video from an actual pirate, that warns other AI companies about pirating my content.
• A full-page ad in the Indiana Daily Student mocking Dean David Tolchinsky and the rest of the media school for what they’ve been doing to the student media in Bloomington.
• A donation to the Student Press Law Center, for all they do for student journalists, in the name of the administrator who has done the worst job of supporting student media rights.
• Buying anything from this website, which was the first actual seller that came up when I Googled, “What is the dumbest thing you can buy?” for any reader who asks for it.
• A donation to university’s media scholarship fund that will give me the naming rights I always aspired to have.
• Funding whatever insane open-records request you think would be awesome.

Honestly, it could be anything, or nothing if we get shut out. The point is, let’s plan to do something to commemorate this one time where the words “Vince Filak” and “lawsuit” is a cause for celebration, as we make a point to help someone or something important in a random and oblique way.

Thanks for reading as always.

Vince (a.k.a. The Doctor of Paper)