Last year, a report emerged suggesting that top AI labs, including OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, would be unable to develop next-gen AI models due to a lack of high-quality content for training.
While top executives in the landscape, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, dismissed the claim, citing that “there’s no wall” to the development of advanced AI models, Anthropic recently found itself between a rock and a hard place over copyright infringement-related issues with Reddit.
Reddit filed a complaint in a Northern California court against Anthropic, claiming that the AI lab used its data to train its models without authorization or compensation. The social news and discussions website alleged that Anthropic unlawfully used its data for commercial purposes more than 100,000 times since July 2024.
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While speaking to TechCrunch, Reddit’s Chief Legal Officer (CLO) Ben Lee indicated:
“We will not tolerate profit-seeking entities like Anthropic commercially exploiting Reddit content for billions of dollars without any return for redditors or respect for their privacy.”
As you may know, Reddit has a licensing deal with Google and OpenAI, which allows the companies to leverage the website’s wealth of content and discussions to train their flagship AI models. Interestingly, both companies are subject to certain terms designed to protect the user’s interest and privacy.
Reddit reiterated that it doesn’t have such an agreement with Anthropic, the developers of Claude AI, as highlighted in the filed complaint, suggesting that the AI lab is acting in bad faith. Reddit indicated that it reached out to Reddit to relay the message, but the AI lab reportedly “refused to engage.”
According to Anthropic spokesperson Danielle Ghighlieri:
“We disagree with Reddit’s claims and will defend ourselves vigorously.”
Reddit claimed that Anthropic has no regard for the website’s rules or users. Instead, “it believes it is entitled to take whatever content it wants and use that content however it desires, with impunity.”
As such, the website is requesting a court order to bar Anthropic from scraping its data without authorization or compensation. In addition, it is also seeking compensatory damages and restitution for the gains Anthropic made by illegally scrapping its data.
The issue of copyright infringement is not uncommon in the AI landscape. Microsoft and OpenAI have been dragged to court several times over the same issue, but they argued that copyright law doesn’t necessarily prohibit the training of AI models using copyrighted content.
Even CEO Sam Altman admitted that it’s impossible to develop ChatGPT-like tools without copyrighted content. This isn’t the first time Anthropic has been in the spotlight over copyright infringement. Last year, three authors filed a lawsuit against the lab after Claude AI allegedly stole their copyrighted content on a “large scale.”