Bloomsbury has confirmed it will benefit from the $1.5bn class action settlement with Anthropic, after the US District Court formally approved the deal in Bartz et al vs Anthropic, which relates to the AI company training its models on content it had not purchased.
The court has listed 14,087 Bloomsbury titles within the settlement, with around $3,000 payable per work, less attorney fees and other expenses, to be divided equally between author and publisher.
On that basis, Bloomsbury’s share would amount to roughly $21m before deductions, with payments spread over several instalments estimated to begin in the second half of the financial year.
The settlement will boost an already healthy balance sheet, with the Harry Potter publisher holding £29.2m of net cash at the end of February.
Bloomsbury said its capital allocation priorities remain organic investment, debt repayment to reduce interest costs, dividend payments and bolt-on acquisitions.
The approval is a landmark moment for publishers in the AI copyright battle, establishing a template for compensation where AI developers have trained models on works without purchasing them.