The book piracy class action lawsuit against Anthropic, first proposed some ten months ago, was finally approved, reports Blake Brittain at Reuters:

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin granted final approval of the settlement, the largest known ​settlement of a U.S. copyright case, rejecting arguments that it was too small.

The previous judge on the case, William Alsup, had postponed approval of the settlement, saying he felt “misled” and “disappointed” and expressed concerns that the settlement was being forced “down the throat of authors.” He retired (or went “inactive” in court parlance) in December 2025.

Judge Martinez-Olguin appears to have none of those concerns.

The plaintiff’s lead attorney, Justin Nelson, called the settlement “the largest known copyright recovery in history.” The amount per infringed book remains about $3,000. When the proposed settlement was initially announced in September, 2025 I wrote:

$3,000 per book is substantial for most authors, but the total settlement is relatively insignificant for Anthropic, which, just days earlier, was newly valued at $183 billion.

Just eight months later, Anthropic was valued at five times that—$965 billion—and its hotly anticipated IPO will undoubtedly push that several hundred billion dollars higher later this year.

I also described Anthropic as being “thrilled to escape with ‘just’ a $1.5 billion fine as a price of doing business,” concluding:

The lesson for companies: steal it all and pay a minuscule portion of your valuation later.

The settlement was already a rounding error. Anthropic will probably spend more to celebrate the decision. “Thrilled” was an understatement. They’re downright exuberant.