Given the size and complexity of the settlement, some controversy was bound to arise in the $1.5 billion agreement reached in the Bartz v. Anthropic copyright lawsuit. One of those disputes has been settled involves an email sent by educational publisher Sage Publishing to its authors, which the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA) said misled authors about how much of the settlement proceeds they had a right to receive.
According to the TAA, Sage wrote to authors telling them that “based on your publishing agreement, we believe your share should match the royalty rate you receive for a sale of your Work applicable to the pirated format of the Work used by Anthropic. According to our records, that rate is 10%.” The email added that if authors did not follow Sage’s advice, the author could see a delay in receiving their settlement proceeds.
After receiving a question from one of its members about the email, in late December TAA filed a motion with the court to intervene in the case and require that Sage send out a new notice explaining that the original email was incorrect. Shortly after filing the motion, attorneys representing the entire class of plaintiffs reached out to the TAA asking the association to retract the motion. TAA agreed to the request, but only after Sage said it would send out a corrected email to its authors. Those emails are going out this week.
In addition to the new email from Sage, TAA said it had asked for and has received confirmation from the class attorneys that attorneys representing the publishers are not aware of any similar emails from educational publishers and have agreed to inform the TAA if they become aware of any.
The TAA also received assurances that the settlement administrator in the Anthropic case will follow up with any Sage authors who filed claims after receiving Sage’s first email to ensure they are informed of the follow up email and their right to revise their claim before the March 30, 2026 claims deadline.
In a statement, TAA executive director Kim Pawlak said that “TAA has supported and worked towards implementation of the settlement in reliance upon the negotiated, Court-approved process, and with the expectation that this issue in particular—i.e., the allocation of settlement proceeds between textbook authors and publishers— would be fairly and impartially resolved, through the Court-ordered process and Special Master if necessary.”
