> That depends on the answer to a question that hasn't been answered yet.

It has been answered in a sense, because the courts (so far) have ruled that training is Fair Use. Whether this is similar to a human learning from a book was not quite the question being answered, but AFAICT there is no other relevant doctrine under Copyright law to address it, largely because the question didn't even exist until LLMs came along.

Also, these are not damages, it's a settlement i.e. a negotiated agreement between both parties.

Relevant sub-thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48997766