Federal Judge Approves $1.5 Billion Anthropic Copyright Settlement — Largest in History

On July 20, 2026, US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted final approval to Anthropic's $1.5 billion copyright settlement, covering roughly 482,000 works with 91% of rights holders claiming shares. Lead lawyer Justin Nelson called it "the largest known copyright recovery in history." Nearly 120,000 authors and publishers are participating. It is the first major resolution among dozens of pending US AI copyright lawsuits.