10/8 TAA Webinar: What Textbook & Academic Authors Need to Know About Filing Claims in Bartz v. Anthropic

Educational/textbook and university press/academic authors represent almost half of the close to 500,000 works infringed in the class in Bartz v. Anthropic. While the court approved 50-50 default splits between authors and publishers of trade and university press works, the court approved a separate claims process for determining the split between educational/textbook authors and publishers.

Join TAA Executive Director Kim Pawlak and Intellectual Property Attorney and TAA Board Member Brenda Ulrich on Wednesday, October 8 from 2-3 p.m. ET for an informational meeting about what textbook and academic authors need to know about filing claims in the settlement: “What Textbook & Academic Authors Need to Know About Filing Claims in Bartz v. Anthropic.” Register. Open to members and non-members.

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Bartz v. Anthropic Copyright Case: A Landmark Settlement for Textbook & Academic Authors. What’s next.

As the only association devoted solely to supporting and advocating for the interests of textbook and academic authors, TAA represents not only its nearly 3,600 author-members, but thousands more. In the historic ruling for U.S. copyright holders in the case of Bartz v. Anthropic, in which the court awarded $1.5 billion to authors and publishers whose books were pirated by Anthropic to train its large language models (LLMs), educational/textbook and university press/academic authors represent almost half of the close to 500,000 works infringed in the class.

At a September 25, 2025 hearing, attended by TAA Executive Director Kim Pawlak, TAA Board Treasurer and mathematics textbook author Michael Sullivan, and TAA Board Member and Intellectual Property Attorney Brenda Ulrich, the court granted preliminary approval of the settlement agreement proposed by the plaintiffs, which outlined the claims process for authors and publishers.

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Publishers Join with Worldwide Coalition to Condemn the Theft of Creative and Intellectual Authorship by Tech Companies for Generative AI Training

On October 22, 2024, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) joined forces with more than 10,000 creators and coalition partners, including authors, musicians, actors, artists, and photographers, to condemn the theft of creative and intellectual authorship by big tech companies for use in their Generative AI models. The AAP released the following statement and are calling on authors and authoring organizations to sign it:

“The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted.” 

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TAA Featured in Podcast on Legal Use of Textbook Images in Teaching Materials

Watch a new episode of The A&P Professor podcast featuring a chat with TAA Board Secretary and intellectual property attorney Brenda Ulrich from Archstone Law about the legal use of textbook images in teaching materials. One of the breaks in this episode encourages listeners to check out TAA membership.

The A&P Professor podcast, for anatomy & physiology faculty, is hosted by award-winning A&P professor & author Dr. Kevin Patton, who is also past-president of TAA.

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Second Circuit Rules Against Internet Archive in Copyright Case

On September 4, 2024, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled against the Internet Archive (IA) in the copyright infringement case, Hachette v. Internet Archive, upholding a March 2023 district court ruling that AI’s lending practices violated copyright law.

IA had argued that its digital lending practices were fair use, but the district court ruled in favor of the publishers, which included Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, and Wiley, who filed the initial suit in June 2020. Here’s a detailed look at the decision by Wired, “The Internet Archive Loses Its Appeal of a Major Copyright Case.”

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Supreme Court Sides With Respondents in Copyright Case

On May 9, 2024, the Supreme Court sided with the respondents in a 6-3 decision in favor of an amicus brief filed in the case of Warner Chappell Music, Inc. et. al v. Nealy et. al. “The Court held that, assuming the discovery rule applies, there is no separate three-year limit on the damages a copyright plaintiff can recover under the Copyright Act,” said Attorney Nathan E. Denning, from Wiggin and Dana LLP, who filed the brief.

TAA had joined with five other author groups on the amicus brief, which was filed on January 12, 2024 in support of the respondents, and argued whether under the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations rule, and the “discovery accrual rule” plaintiffs in copyright infringement cases “can recover damages for acts that allegedly occurred more than three years before the filing of a lawsuit.”

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