Hi Laura, >From Wikipedia "Shadow libraries (also pirate libraries or black open access) >are online repositories of freely available digital media that are normally >paywalled, access-controlled, or otherwise not readily accessible"
I am avoiding listing the names of the shadow libraries here; you can find them in the Wikipedia article or in stories about the Anthropic case. Regards, Tung Ken PS AFAIK as far as I know IANAL I am not a lawyer On Tuesday, 2 December 2025, 17:00:09 GMT, Laura R via Origami <[email protected]> wrote: Hi Tung Ken, Can you explain what a shadow library is about? Also, the acronyms, so us laymen can understand the concepts and how that affects authors. Thanks! Laura R. > On Dec 2, 2025, at 1:56 PM, Tung Ken Lam via Origami > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Quite a few origami books were in the shadow library that Anthropic > downloaded, including one of mine. > > Unfortunately, however, these books are excluded from this settlement as US > copyright registration was required before the the books were dowloaded (to > qualify for non-statutory damages). > > AFAIK, the US is the only country that registers copyright like this, but > IANAL. US copyright registration is 45 USD per work > https://www.copyright.gov/about/fees.html > > Tung Ken > > PS This case is not about the legality of training AI with copyrighted works, > but the downloading of works from a shadow library. > > > > > On Tuesday, 2 December 2025, 16:29:35 GMT, Nicolas TERRY via Origami > <[email protected]> wrote: > > This is the first time I've ever been truly disappointed that none of my > books have been pirated.... :o) > > Nicolas > > >> > ... > In a nutshell, the AI firm Anthropic allegedly used a huge trove of pirated > publications to train their AI model Claude; they have been sued in a class > action suit, and rather than face a jury, they have offered to settle, with > the settlement amount being $3K per pirated work (divided up among authors, > publishers, and some percentage for unspecified fees). > > > So this is a real thing. Here’s an NPR report about the suit and settlement: > https://www.npr.org/2025/09/05/nx-s1-5529404/anthropic-settlement-authors-copyright-ai > > And here’s the official settlement website: > > https://www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/ > > > ... > > Robert > > > >
