Robert wrote: Normally, when I get an email that says something like
Sounds like we may have another job for the law firm that handled the Anthropic case! Cricut, Inc. the cutting machine company, updated their Terms of Use on Sept. `6, 2026 granting themselves. a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, exclusive license to collect, use, reproduce, create derivative works and sell Users' uploaded files. Cricut too has developed their ow AI generator All personal files of 8 million users were collected by Cricut. Orifun to all!! Dianne From: Origami [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Robert Lang Sent: Monday, December 1, 2025 4:34 PM To: Origami-L Subject: [Origami] Anthropic copyright settlement Normally, when I get an email that says something like “you’ve been chosen to receive thousands of dollars from this thing you’ve read about in the news,” I file it in the same junk folder with the offers to share millions of dollars from the widow of Saddam Hussein, the email from [email protected] that they represent the IRS and I have to give them my full banking information immediately to avoid cancellation of my everything, the notices that I’ve bought 500 bucks of Bitcoin and call this number if this is in error, and their fellow scammy brethren. And then, once in a blue moon, it’s something real; and that’s the case now with the Anthropic copyright settlement. 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/ That site has a lookup form where authors can see if any of their works were in the pirated trove (and therefore may be claimed). I found a few of mine, and, out of curiosity, checked a few other origami authors and found a few of their works, too. If you have works that show up in their list, you can make a claim for each work. There’s much more information on the settlement site, with various caveats and definitions and eligibility and rules for how each settlement gets divvy’d up among potential claimants. Since I Am Not a Lawyer, I won’t try to describe it all here; I’ll just recommend that if you are an origami author, do a quick search on their lookup form, and if you find one or more of your books, read further about the claim process, and then decide if you want to move forward. HTH, Robert
