A US federal court issued a landmark ruling on June 24, 2025, in the copyright case against AI company Anthropic, a decision that could define the future of the entire generative AI industry. As reported on June 25 by leading news agencies, including Reuters and the Associated Press, the court ruled that the use of copyrighted materials for training large language models can fall under the "fair use" doctrine. This decision was the culmination of a lawsuit filed by a group of authors and publishers who claimed that Anthropic had illegally used their works to train its Claude family of models. The court, however, concluded that the training process itself is "transformative" in nature. That is, the data is not used to create a substitute for the original works, but to create an entirely new tool – an artificial intelligence that performs different functions. The ruling, however, emphasizes that the "fair use" defense is not absolute. It is unlikely to apply in cases where the AIs output directly reproduces significant portions of the original works or serves as a market substitute for them, thereby harming the copyright holders. For Anthropic and the entire AI industry, this is a huge victory, setting a powerful legal precedent and providing a partial shield against numerous similar lawsuits. For copyright holders, it means it will be more difficult to demand licensing fees for the mere use of their materials for training, and future legal battles will likely shift towards analyzing the specific outputs of AI models.
US Court Issues Precedent-Setting Ruling in Favor of Anthropic in AI Copyright Case
