Cruz v. Anthropic PBC

On 13 May 2026, various individual authors and copyright holders filed a complaint in the US District Court for the Central District of California against Anthropic. The Plaintiffs seek damages for copyright infringement alleging that Anthropic illegally downloaded, reproduced, and distributed their literary works without authorisation.

The Plaintiffs' works were included on the Works List compiled as part of the Bartz v. Anthropic settlement, from which they opted out to pursue individual claims.

The Plaintiffs allege that Anthropic obtained their works through pirated online libraries and datasets, including Books3 and The Pile, Library Genesis (LibGen), ZLibrary, Pirate Library Mirror (PiLiMi), and Anna's Archive. Plaintiffs assert that Anthropic directly or indirectly downloaded works from at least Books3, LibGen, and PiLiMi, thereby obtaining and reproducing the Plaintiffs' copyrighted literary works without permission or compensation.

The Plaintiffs bring claims for direct copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. § 501, contributory copyright infringement, and removal of copyright management information under 17 U.S.C. § 1202(b)(1), seeking damages.

This summary is provided for educational and research purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Allegations described are those made in the filings. Please consult the underlying source documents.