> A trial was scheduled to begin in December to determine how much Anthropic owed for the alleged piracy, with potential damages ranging into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
It has been admitted and Anthropic knew that this trial would totally bankrupt them had they said they were innocent and continued to fight the case.
But of course, there's too much money on the line, which means even though Anthropic settled (admitting guilt and profiting off of pirated books) they (Anthropic) knew there was no way they could win that case, and was not worth taking that risk.
> The pivotal fair-use question is still being debated in other AI copyright cases. Another San Francisco judge hearing a similar ongoing lawsuit against Meta ruled shortly after Alsup's decision that using copyrighted work without permission to train AI would be unlawful in "many circumstances."
The first of many.
If it was a sure thing, then the rights holders wouldn't have accepted a settlement deal for a measly couple billion. Both sides are happier to avoid risking losing the suit.
Also knowing how pro corporate the legal system is piercing the veil and going after everyone holding the stock would have been unlikely. So getting 1,5 billion out of them likely could have been reasonable move. Otherwise they could have just burned all the money and flipped what was leftover to someone else, with uncertain price and horizon.
Wait, DID they admit guilt? A lot of times companies settle without admitting guilt.
They would only be wiped out if the court awarded the maximum statutory damages (or close to it). There was never any chance of that happening.