Anthropic and Stanford professors' books: what the Stanford Daily reported about pirated copies, and what the lawsuits allege

Anthropic and Stanford professors' books became a campus story on October 27, 2026, when the Stanford Daily published "Anthropic illegally trained Claude with Stanford professors' books." The student paper reported that Anthropic "illegally scraped and pirated the work of over 10 Stanford professors to train its Claude models," and named six of them. The piracy claims aren't new: they were the core of the authors' class action Bartz v. Anthropic, which ended in a $1.5 billion settlement. What the Daily adds is the Stanford names, and the account of two professors who chose to sue on their own. Where Bartz sits among Anthropic's other copyright cases is in our Anthropic copyright lawsuit roundup.

This story is based on the Stanford Daily article, the settlement administrator's website, court-stamped copies of the complaints in Cruz v. Anthropic and Kwon v. Anthropic published by the case-tracking blog ChatGPT Is Eating the World, later court-stamped filings in those cases, summaries of Judge Alsup's June 2025 order, and reporting by the Associated Press, the Authors Guild and Authors Alliance, checked October 28 and 29, 2026. Nothing here is legal advice.

The short version

• The report: the Stanford Daily, October 27, 2026, by April Yu. It names Tobias Wolff, Abraham Verghese, Chang-rae Lee, Daniel Mason, Hayagreeva Rao and Myra Strober.
• The ruling it rests on: in Bartz, Judge William Alsup held on June 23, 2025, that training Claude on books was fair use, but that downloading pirated books for a permanent central library was not.
• The settlement: $1.5 billion, about $3,000 per work, 482,460 works on the list, final approval July 20, 2026. Claims closed March 30, 2026; first payments are expected by November 15, 2026.
• The opt-outs: the Daily says Wolff and Lee left the class and sued in Cruz v. Anthropic. Complaint copies posted by ChatGPT Is Eating the World show Lee in a different suit, Kwon v. Anthropic, and don't show Wolff in either.
• Anthropic: no comment appears in the Daily's article. Anthropic has pointed to the fair-use ruling.

What did the Stanford Daily report?

The Daily's article, by April Yu, says Anthropic "previously trained Claude on illegally obtained texts" from professors Tobias Wolff, Abraham Verghese, Chang-rae Lee, Daniel Mason, Hayagreeva Rao and Myra Strober, and puts the total at "over 10 Stanford professors." It describes Wolff as a professor emeritus of English and says 10 of his publications were used without permission. It doesn't list book titles.

Wolff is the only named professor quoted on the case. "They're using my work without paying for it," he told the Daily. He also called it "a form of slave labor." Paul Goldstein, a Stanford Law intellectual property scholar who the Daily says is one of the plaintiffs represented in the class action, wrote to the paper that "the essential problem … is what economists call 'transaction costs.'"

The Daily doesn't say how the professors learned their books were involved. It doesn't mention the settlement's public Works List lookup, through which authors can search for their titles.

What did the court actually rule?

The Daily's opening says "a federal judge ruled in a May 2026 lawsuit." The ruling it goes on to describe is older. On June 23, 2025, in Bartz v. Anthropic (No. 24-cv-5417, Northern District of California), Judge William Alsup held, as law firm Akin Gump summarized it, that training on copyrighted books was "exceedingly transformative" and fair use, and that scanning legally purchased print books was fair use too. But he found that Anthropic's "downloading of over seven million pirated books for its permanent internal library was not fair use," and left that issue to go to trial.

So the court's finding was about how the books were acquired and stored, not about training as such. The Daily's headline calls the training illegal; the order it quotes treats training as fair use. The piracy claims never reached a verdict. Anthropic agreed to settle in September 2025, before the trial set for that December, the AP reported, and agreed to delete the original book files it had downloaded.

Is this linked to the Bartz v. Anthropic settlement?

Yes. The Daily ties it to Bartz, and the settlement covers books that Anthropic downloaded from pirate libraries. The Daily doesn't say whether each named professor's books are on the settlement's Works List. For one of them, a court filing points the same way: the Kwon complaint says its plaintiffs, who include Chang-rae Lee, own works "that were included on the Works List" and have opted out of the settlement. For the other five, the Daily is the only source.

The numbers, from the settlement's administrator and the groups tracking it:

• Fund: $1.5 billion, about $3,000 per work, the Authors Guild says.
• Works: 482,460 on the Works List, with claims filed for 440,490 of them, or 91.3%, according to Authors Alliance, citing Class Counsel's April 16, 2026 filing.
• Approval: Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted final approval on July 20, 2026. Alsup, who gave preliminary approval, has since retired, the AP reported.
• Deadlines: the opt-out and objection deadline passed on February 9, 2026, and "the deadline to submit a claim was March 30, 2026," the settlement site says.
• Payments: "We currently expect to send the first round of payments on or before November 15, 2026," the site says.

The release is narrow. The Authors Guild says it covers only Anthropic's past acquisition and copying of listed works, through August 25, 2025, and that it "does not apply to any output claims." Works not on the list are unaffected.

Which professors sued Anthropic on their own?

The Daily reports that Wolff and Lee opted out of the Bartz settlement and, in May 2026, "filed the separate non-class lawsuit Cruz v. Anthropic, seeking a jury trial for full statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work."

The complaints tell a slightly different story. 9to5AI read them as court-stamped copies published by ChatGPT Is Eating the World, a blog that tracks AI copyright cases, not on the court's own docket. A court-stamped June 9, 2026 filing in Cruz also names neither Wolff nor Lee among the plaintiffs:

Last verified: October 29, 2026

The Cruz complaint, in that copy, lists Stris & Maher and Freedman Normand Friedland as counsel, and ChatGPT Is Eating the World says the same firms represent the Kwon group. Both are individual, not class, actions. The Cruz plaintiffs demand a jury trial, statutory damages and a permanent injunction; the Kwon plaintiffs also seek statutory damages and an injunction. The Cruz complaint alleges that Anthropic "downloaded at least five million copies of books from LibGen" and that its employees "torrented approximately two million additional pirated books." Those are allegations, not findings.

A May 14, 2026 post on ChatGPT Is Eating the World names Wolff in its headline about the Cruz filing, but his name doesn't appear in the complaint it links. Wolff may be a party to another filing that 9to5AI didn't find. The professors' suits also differ from the Elvis Presley song owners' case, a separate music suit covered in our Elvis lawsuit story.

What does Anthropic say?

The Daily's article contains no statement from Anthropic and doesn't say whether the company was asked. As of October 29, 2026, no Anthropic response to the article had been reported, and the Daily's article carried no correction or editor's note.

Anthropic has spoken about the case it settled. When the settlement won final approval, deputy general counsel Aparna Sridhar said in a written statement that "we're looking forward to bringing this matter to a close" and pointed to the ruling that "training AI on books is fair use under copyright law," the AP reported. In the opt-out cases, Anthropic opposed, in late July 2026, a request by plaintiffs in five related suits, including Cruz and Kwon, to combine the briefing on motions to dismiss, arguing that "the respective complaints have their own deficiencies," according to ChatGPT Is Eating the World. On August 3, 2026, Judge P. Casey Pitts, who now has all five related cases, granted the plaintiffs' motion, as modified: any motions to dismiss must be argued in single consolidated briefs, with a hearing in December 2026, according to a court-stamped copy of the order posted by the same blog. The company's wider legal and governance picture is in our Anthropic explainer.

What's confirmed, reported and uncertain

• Confirmed (settlement site, with the June 2025 ruling as summarized by Akin Gump): the June 2025 split ruling, the $1.5 billion settlement and its approval date, the claim and opt-out deadlines, and the expected November 15 payments.
• Reported (Stanford Daily): that books by more than 10 Stanford professors were among the pirated copies, the six names, Wolff's 10 publications and quotes, and that Wolff and Lee opted out.
• From court-stamped filings (copies hosted by ChatGPT Is Eating the World and CourtListener, not read on the court's own docket): the Cruz and Kwon case numbers, filing dates, counsel and plaintiff lists, Lee's place in Kwon, the Kwon plaintiffs' statement that their works are on the Works List, and the August 3, 2026 consolidated schedule. Anthropic's July 2026 opposition is as described by the blog.
• Uncertain: which titles by each professor are on the Works List, and whether Wolff, Verghese, Mason, Rao or Strober has any there (the Daily is the only source); whether Wolff is a plaintiff in any filed case; and whether Anthropic was asked about the Daily's article.