Right, the settlement doesn't.
However, the judge already ruled on the only important piece of this legal proceeding:
> Alsup ruled in June that Anthropic made fair use of the authors' work to train Claude...
Right, the settlement doesn't.
However, the judge already ruled on the only important piece of this legal proceeding:
> Alsup ruled in June that Anthropic made fair use of the authors' work to train Claude...
The ruling also doesn’t establish precedent, because it is a trial court ruling, which is never binding precedent, and under normal circumstances can’t even be cited as persuasive precedent, and the settlement ensures there will be no appellate ruling.
On top of that this was just one case in the US. It's honestly a bit ridiculous how some Americans seem to believe that when one random judge from their country rules something that instantly turns into an international treaty that every country on Earth must accept.
I thought it was precedentual within its circuit until an appellate says otherwise? And the the SC eventually joins in when two apellates disagree.
> I thought it was precedentual within its circuit until an appellate says otherwise?
No, trial court decisions are never binding precedent, if they are “published” decisions, they may generally be cited as persuasive precedent. Appellate decisions (Circuit Courts in the federal system) are binding on the trial courts subordinate to that appellate court (and even on panels of the same appellate court) until reversed by the same court sitting en banc or by a higher court (the US Supreme Court in the federal system.)
I suspect that ruling legally gets wiped off the books by the settlement since the case gets dismissed, no?
Even if the ruling legally remains in place after the settlement, district court rulings are at most persuasive precedent and not binding precedent in future cases, even ones handled by the same court. In the US federal court system, only appellate rulings at either the circuit court of appeals level or the Supreme Court level are binding precedent within their respective jurisdictions.
That ruling does not get wiped off, you're right it is persuasive precedent, and it certainly can be cited in other cases, even if it's non-binding. It will be useful. District court rulings are used all the time as cites in novel applications of law like this.
Which is very important for e.g. the NYT lawsuit against OpenAI. Basically there’s now precedent that training AI models on text and them producing output is not copyright infringement.
Judge Alsup’s ruling is not binding precedent, no.