On December 22, 2025, the Textbook & Academic Authors Association (TAA) filed a motion to intervene in the Bartz v. Anthropic case, asking for an order to require curative notice and injunctive relief by Sage Publishing after the company sent a misleading email to its authors. In that email, Sage directed its authors to claim a specific percentage of the settlement and asserted that by not doing so, the authors could delay getting their payment. After negotiating with class attorneys and with Sage about sending a curative email that addresses the main concerns detailed by TAA in the motion, TAA agreed to withdraw the motion. Sage authors should receive the curative email this week.

TAA’s motion was filed after TAA Executive Director Kim Pawlak received an email from a TAA member on December 12 forwarding an email the author received from her publisher, Sage.

In the Sage email TAA reviewed, the company stated 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 bold is Sage’s].” The email also asserted that by not following Sage’s advice, the author could see a delay in receiving their settlement proceeds: “To help avoid delays, please include this allocation percentage in your claim. If different claimants submit conflicting percentages, the Settlement Administrator will need to resolve the dispute, which could slow down the process of recovery and delay your royalty payment.” Similar emails were sent to other Sage authors.

Said Pawlak: “It is inappropriate, to my mind, for the publishers to be telling authors how to fill out their claim forms. Publishers and authors may have different views about how the settlement proceeds should be split. The Court adopted an appropriate and expedited process for resolving these disputes; Sage suggested to the contrary, that to claim anything other than what Sage has told authors to claim would lead to undue delay.”

TAA has since heard from several other Sage authors in the class who received similar emails. In the motion, Pawlak stated her concerns about Sage’s emails, which she understood had been sent to hundreds of authors. Specifically:

• The Court-approved process does not begin with the publisher instructing the author on what the publisher believes the author should receive. “There is a Court-approved process for informing authors about the settlement terms, and for resolving issues if an author does not know how much they are entitled to under their contract or the settlement agreement. Contrary to Sage’s email that resumes the accuracy of the publisher’s assertion that the royalty-on-sale rate governs the allocation of settlement proceeds (in this instance, a 90/10 split between publisher and author), the Court-approved process requires claimants to provide information about the split applicable to each work—and provides for information exchange if (in a likely case) the authors simply does not know what their contract requires.”
• Sage did not clearly disclose that it has a conflict of interest with the authors to whom it was communicating. “While that conflict is implicit from the structure of the settlement—as for each work the publishers and authors must allocate the proceeds in a zero-sum exercise—the average author receiving this communication may not intuitively recognize that Sage’s email is a self-interested communication from the publisher, or that the author’s rights may differ from Sage’s representation.”
• The email from Sage was an attempt to short-circuit the court-approved resolution process and unfairly influence that resolution process. “There is no basis in the settlement agreement for the conclusion that the author’s share should be limited to the ‘royalty rate you receive for a sale of your Work,’ and most textbook publishing agreements contain other clauses that govern the allocation of revenues associated with licensing (as opposed to sales) to which this settlement payment is more akin. Royalties for sale are negotiated to account for the costs of marketing, production, distribution, and sales—none of which apply in the instance of pirated infringement. There is no cost basis from the settlement to warrant the ‘royalty on sale’ rate that Sage advocates. The absence of any cost basis is why sublicensing revenues are often shared 50/50 between authors and publishers—or at a minimum, far more favorably to authors than the sales royalty rate. This is a key disagreement between authors and publishers, and central to the process that the Court approved, with a Special Master to resolve case-by-case disputes.”
• This misleading guidance from Sage was likely to suppress author participation and thus result in Sage’s claim becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Many authors—if they believe that they are entitled to only 10% of the recovery—will not bother to go through the effort of filing a claim (which is already substantial effort, given the additional complexity for textbook authors to make a claim). In that case, Sage’s 90% claim will not be opposed by the author, and Sage may have manufactured consent to an improper split based upon its unfair and misleading communication. As an aside, by suppressing author participation, I understand that Sage would ultimately receive 100% of the amount ultimately allocated for that work.”
• Some authors would take Sage’s misleading advice. “I am aware of at least one author who filled out their claim form in reliance on this email from Sage, and thereby restricted their claim based on Sage’s email, even though they did not know whether that was the correct allocation or not. That author (and presumably others) should have had the benefit of the resolution process approved by the Court but was misled into filing a claim based on Sage’s email.”
• Sage expressly sought to dissuade class members from consulting with counsel—even Class Counsel—to understand their rights. Sage wrote, “‘Note: You may hear from lawyers or companies offering to assist with your claim. The claims process is designed to be simple and straightforward, allowing authors and other rights holders to complete it without assistance.’ (emphasis supplied). In other words, Sage is warning authors to disregard precisely the manner of communication that Sage is making.Sage continues that authors should ‘[b]e advised that working with third parties to file your claim will likely diminish the amount you recover under the settlement.’ This is false—it is unlikely that taking assistance would lead to a recovery of less than 10%, which is what Sage told the author to claim. Moreover, it is also very misleading, and probably unethical.”

TAA clarified that it supports the settlement, despite its complexities for textbook authors, because the association also represents academic authors who are able to claim a 50% default allocation of the settlement proceeds. However, said Pawlak, “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.”

In addition to that curative email from Sage, TAA asked for and has received confirmation from the class attorneys that the:

• Attorneys representing the publishers are not aware of any similar emails from educational publishers and have agreed to inform us if they become aware of any.
• 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.

TAA thanks David Slarskey, an attorney with Slarskey LLC, and Brenda Ulrich, TAA Board Member and an attorney with Archstone Law, for their assistance and guidance in filing this motion with the court and in negotiating a curative email with the class attorneys and Sage. 

For more information see:

• Original email sent by Sage to its authors on the works list (redacted to protect identify of author who shared it)
• Declaration of Kim Pawlak in Support of Motion to Intervene and for Curative Communication
• Declaration of David N. Slarskey in Support of Motion to Intervene and for Curative Communication
• MOTION to Intervene filed by Textbook and Academic Authors Association
• Order Granting Joint Motion for Supplemental Class Notice
• Joint MOTION Notice of Motion and Motion for Approval of Supplemental Class Notice filed by Andrea Bartz, Andrea Bartz, Inc., Charles Graeber, Kirk Wallace Johnson, MJ + KJ, Inc.

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The Claims Process for Textbook & Academic Authors in the Bartz v. Anthropic Copyright Case is Unique. Review Our Guidance Before Filing Claims.

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