{"id":260253,"date":"2026-01-14T10:21:03","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T17:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/montanafreepress.org\/?p=260253"},"modified":"2026-01-14T13:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:29:11","slug":"dozens-of-montana-writers-owed-money-from-ai-settlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montanafreepress.org\/2026\/01\/14\/dozens-of-montana-writers-owed-money-from-ai-settlement\/","title":{"rendered":"Your favorite Montana-based author may be owed\u00a0money as part of a $1.5 billion AI company settlement\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Prompt:<\/em><\/strong> Write a 75-word lede in the voice of author Jim Harrison about the $1.5 billion Anthropic settlement with writers after the company trained the Large Language Model behind its Claude.ai chatbot on pirated books. Include the potential impact on Montana writers and the state’s literary community.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claude.ai:<\/em><\/strong> The AI boys at Anthropic just coughed up $1.5 billion for pirating half a million books to teach their chatbot how to write. Three grand per book, which won’t buy you much whiskey but it’s something. Out here in Montana, where writers still believe words matter and a handshake means something, this settlement might actually put money in the pockets of poets and novelists who’ve been getting their work stolen by Silicon Valley’s latest gold rush. About damn time somebody paid.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Claude AI<\/a>, the chatbot that generated this story\u2019s quasi-Harrison lede, is a product of $183 billion artificial intelligence company Anthropic. The tool knew how to try to write like the author of \u201cLegends of the Fall\u201d and \u201cDalva,\u201d because it had trained on 23 books that the celebrated novelist, poet and screenwriter wrote. This is a problem according to his daughter, Livingston-based author Jamie Harrison, in part because the company did so without permission from the estate of the late author. But also, because it still doesn\u2019t sound like him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jim Harrison, who maintained a residence in the Paradise Valley,  would have opted for \u201csomething truly offensive instead of \u2018Silicon Valley\u2019s latest gold rush,\u2019\u201d she told me in a recent interview. And \u201cwon\u2019t buy you much whiskey\u201d sounds way too \u201cfolksy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harrison and his daughter are two of dozens of Montana-based writers who have until March 23 to file a claim to receive a payout from one of the largest copyright settlements in United States history.<\/a> Last fall, Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion<\/a> to tens of thousands of U.S. copyright-holding writers and publishers for downloading their books from free copyright-infringing online sites. The settlement amounts to around $3,000 per title, split evenly between the author, or the author\u2019s estate, and the book\u2019s publisher according to The Authors Guild.  <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The database<\/a> of affected authors is not searchable by location. But by sifting through the database I found that Anthropic had downloaded pirated works by a veritable who\u2019s who of working Montana writers. That includes bestselling contemporary memoirist Stephanie Land, Tom McGuane, David Quammen, Kevin Canty, Deirdre McNamer, David James Duncan, Malcolm Brooks, Doug Peacock, Douglas Chadwick, and Michael Punke. Also eligible for settlement payouts are the estates and publishers of deceased Montana-identified authors including 1950 Pulitzer Prize winner A.B. Guthrie Jr., \u201cThe Last Best Place\u201d anthology co-editor William Kittredge, influential poet and teacher Richard Hugo and celebrated Native American novelist James Welch. (Authors who qualify for the settlement were supposed to receive notice of eligibility in late November, but I found that some had not yet been notified, so you might want to see if you\u2019re in there.<\/a>) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spoke to several Montana authors about the settlement and the AI company\u2019s use of literary work to build large language models and chatbots. Some raised concerns that the settlement’s one-time compensation is insufficient. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn my perspective, it doesn’t teach them anything, because it’s just not enough of a dent in their bottom line,\u201d award-winning Livingston-based writer, activist and filmmaker Doug Peacock said. Peacock\u2019s book \u201cGrizzly Years: In Search of the American Wilderness\u201d is on the settlement list, meaning he\u2019s due around $1,500 after splitting his $3,000 with his publisher. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many others were more concerned about a bigger picture question: how a rising chorus of manufactured AI voices, mimicking Montana writers, could undermine the state\u2019s literary identity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI guess I\u2019d say, you know, it\u2019s like damming a river\u201d when the voice informing and responding to readers is AI,\u201d said Jamie Harrison, who is owed compensation for her 2017 novel \u201cThe Widow Nash\u201d and two other titles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"John\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
At Elk River Books in Livingston, author Jamie Harrison stands in front of a shelf of books by Montana authors eligible for a portion of AI company Anthropic’s $1.5 billion class-action copyright settlement.
Credit:<\/span> John Zumpano \/ MTFP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

HOW ANTHROPIC USED MONTANA WRITERS WORK <\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Last year, nearly 19 million people<\/a> used Anthropic\u2019s Claude chatbot to write reports, conduct research, organize photo libraries, code websites,<\/a> write short stories, and much more. Claude is able to accomplish those tasks in large part because the large language models that inform its responses are trained on published books, including works created by authors in Montana. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Paul Fern, an Oregon State University professor of robotics and AI, says books are one of the best ways to train large language models because a book constitutes a reliable dataset. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you go on to just arbitrary web pages, you’re scouring the web, you’re going to get a lot of garbage,\u201d he said in a phone call. \u201cBooks, at least, have been edited. There’s a nice structure to them.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some AI companies have chosen to train their tools only on books and other material that they have explicit permission to use. In the case of Anthropic, the company created a training set from books on pirated sites like Library Genesis and Pirate Library, the lawsuit found. This is why writers in Montana are now owed money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Northern District Court of California Judge William Alsup weighed two primary questions. One was whether AI companies should be allowed to use pirated data to train language models. He found they should not, determining that Anthropic\u2019s acquisition of more than 7 million versions of books from unauthorized internet libraries was not allowed. Had the case proceeded to trial and resulted in the plaintiffs\u2019 favor,  Alsup determined that Anthropic could owe as much as $150,000 in statutory damages per title. Anthropic\u2019s $1.5 billion settlement offer, approved by Alsup and accepted by the plaintiffs, requires Anthropic to destroy any copies of the pirated books that it downloaded or duplicated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd it does not give them any right to use our books going forward. It’s not a licensing deal,\u201d Brooklyn-based thriller writer Andrea Bartz, one of the lawsuit\u2019s lead plaintiffs, told me on the phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alsup also weighed a second question: whether training LLMs on copyrighted books, regardless of how the works were acquired, violates the \u201cfair use\u201d doctrine that governs large swaths of copyright law. In a summary judgment in June, Alsup decided that works Anthropic purchased legally could be used to train LLMs because that use is \u201ctransformative\u201d \u2014 a key fair-use copyright criteria.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLike any reader aspiring to be a writer, Anthropic\u2019s LLMs trained upon works not to race ahead and replicate or supplant them \u2014 but to turn a hard corner and create something different,\u201d Alsup wrote in his order on the fair-use aspect of the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately what this all means is that though authors in Montana \u2014 and beyond \u2014 are owed money because Anthropic downloaded versions of their books without payment, Anthropic and other AI companies may be able to continue to train on their work if they obtain it through other means. Laws<\/a> about what is \u2014 and is not \u2014 fair use with AI are evolving<\/a>. Dozens of AI copyright lawsuits<\/a> are currently winding their way through courts, while publishers are also negotiating a range of licensing deals<\/a> for their writers. I repeatedly reached out to Anthropic and its attorneys for comment, on behalf of Montana Free Press, and received no response. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018VOICES THAT ARE NOT HUMAN\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Joshua Love, a Los Angeles-based copyright attorney and partner in Reed Smith’s Entertainment & Media Industry Group, is hopeful that writers in Montana \u2014 and beyond \u2014 will eventually be able to share in AI companies\u2019 profits. \u201cHopefully we’ll see some licensing frameworks emerge and maybe some kind of mutual will on the part of the copyright owners and the AI tools to actually establish licensing frameworks, and ones that work for them and that make economic sense and that ultimately would allow the copyright owners at large to share in the revenue,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, a national writers advocacy organization that advised the lawsuit\u2019s plaintiffs, thinks the settlement amount \u201csends a very good message to AI companies that you can’t just steal books and use them to build your AI. You have to pay for them.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Lauren\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
The Missoula public library is seen on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025.
Credit:<\/span> Lauren Miller, Montana Free Press, CatchLight Local\/Report for America<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Several Montana-based writers I spoke to were less concerned about compensation, though, than they were about ownership of literary identity and ensuring that stories about Montana come from real people in the state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s impossible to be a well-informed individual if you’re relying on out-of-state voices. Or voices that are not human, you know, the lived experience,\u201d said Stephanie Land, author of the bestsellers \u201cMaid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive\u201d and \u201cClass: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hunger, and Higher Education,\u201d both of which are eligible for the Anthropic settlement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd first-person narratives and on-the-ground reporting from locals to locals, you know, is really the heart of how we function just as a society. I think it’s tragic to lose that. Because then where are we getting our information from? And who is actually able to spread information?\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Annick Smith, <\/strong>a <\/strong>Bonner-based writer of the settlement-eligible \u201cCrossing the Plains with Bruno\u201d and widow of novelist-memoirist William Kittredge, who penned five titles acquired and used by Anthropic, echoed concerns about authorial individuality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’m all in favor of people thinking for themselves, and my big objection to AI is that it becomes a shortcut for people to allow them not to think for themselves,\u201d Smith, who also co-edited the Montana literature anthology \u201cThe Last Best Place,\u201d said. \u201cAnd that is a great detriment to culture in general.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMontana is not just a bunch of ranchers and cowboys with guns. Which is what, you know, you might believe if you watch \u2018Yellowstone,\u2019\u201d she said. She believes it\u2019s important to have different kinds of actual people who live in Montana involved in preserving and telling stories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If AI plays too much of a role in the storytelling marketplace, then we\u2019ll just get stereotypical tropes recycled again and again, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI write about wild nature and wilderness and the value of such things,\u201d said Peacock, \u201cand that comes from such a nuanced place that, you know, it really blends into the spiritual. And I don’t think you can make a mechanical, you know, rendering of that.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For his last book, he said he spoke every one of the sentences out loud to himself before he wrote them down. \u201cAnd I don’t think they can come from such a place without having lived there,\u201d he said.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Prompt<\/em>:<\/em><\/strong> Can you write a quote in the voice of Jim Harrison to end the piece?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claude:<\/em> I appreciate what you’re asking, but I don’t think I should do that \u2014 and the irony here cuts both ways now.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your article is about how AI companies scraped writers’ works without permission to train models like me. Then I demonstrated I can’t accurately capture Harrison’s voice (as his daughter pointed out). Now you’re asking me to generate a quote attributed to a real, deceased writer to end a serious piece of journalism about copyright theft.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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