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Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic has agreed to pay a record-setting $1.5 billion to a group of book authors and publishers in order to settle a class action lawsuit. The payout is thought to be the largest in the history of U.S. copyright suits and could influence other cases where an AI company has been sued for copyright violations. This settlement sends a powerful message to AI companies and creators alike that taking copyrighted works from these pirate websites is wrong, Justin Nelson, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a statement. The suit, filed last year, was brought by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson over copyright infringement. They alleged that Anthropic used the authors’ copyrighted books to train its chatbot, Claude. Is AI training ‘fair use’? In June, a judge ruled that while Anthropic was allowed to train its AI model using books that it had acquired the copyright for under fair use rules, the startup had illegally acquired books via online libraries that contained bootleg copies of books. The judge concluded that the authors had cause for the case to proceed to a trial. That was slated to start in December. Now, according to a court filing on Friday, the startup has agreed to pay authors $3,000 for each of around 500,000 books it used to train its AI, plus interest. The company also agreed to destroy the datasets containing the allegedly pirated material. As best as we can tell, its the largest copyright recovery ever, Nelsons said, according to the Associated Press It is the first of its kind in the AI era, he added.“Today’s settlement, if approved, will resolve the plaintiffs’ remaining legacy claims. We remain committed to developing safe AI systems that help people and organizations extend their capabilities, advance scientific discovery, and solve complex problems, Anthropics deputy general counsel Aparna Sridhar said in a statement. What does this mean for other AI companies? The settlement may give other AI companies facing similar challenges to their use of copyrighted material to train their models pause. Back in June, the judge in this case affirmed that using books to train a large language model represented a transformative use of the workcrucial for fair usebut made a clear distinction if the books had been sourced illegally. Since chatbots exploded onto the scene in late 2022, authors have repeatedly expressed concern that the models that power them were trained using their works without permission. In 2023, The Authors Guild, a professional organization for writers, sent an open letter to the CEOs of prominent AI companies calling for them to get authors consent before using their’ works to train models. More than 15,000 authors signed the open letter; best-selling author Nora Roberts was among them. “If creators arent compensated fairly, they cant afford to create. If writers arent paid to write, they cant afford to write,” she said at the time. Anthropic is not the only AI startup at the center of a copyright case: OpenAI was sued in 2023 by more than a dozen authors for copyright infringement in the training of its large language modelsthe suit is still pending. And another suit brought by authors against Meta on similar grounds was dismissed earlier this year, but the judge did not weigh in on whether the companys use of copyrighted materials to train its AI was legal. The judge in the case has scheduled a hearing on Monday to review the settlement terms; he will need to approve it before it can go ahead.
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E-Commerce
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is planning to release a report that will reportedly link autism and acetaminophen use in pregnancy, according to The Wall Street Journal. The department has confirmed a report is in the works, but has not revealed its conclusions. Drug maker Kenvue, which sells acetaminophen under the brand name Tylenol, saw its shares slump following the Journals report, dropping more than 10% on Friday. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ihas made investigating autism a cornerstone of his efforts at the department. According to the Journal, the report will also make a link between folate deficiency and autism. But in statements to other media outlets, an HHS spokesperson said the Journals reporting was “speculation.” “We are using gold-standard science to get to the bottom of America’s unprecedented rise in autism rates, a spokesperson for the department said. What the science says about acetaminophen and autism Some studies have found correlations between taking the common painkiller in pregnancy and the risk of children developing neurodevelopmental conditions. But these studies dont prove a link, and other results suggest otherwise: A 2024 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) studythe largest on acetaminophen to datefound that there was no association between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and increased risk of autism, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, or intellectual disability. The report comes months after Kennedy promised HHS would undertake a “massive testing and research effort” to find a cause for autism as soon as September. A mountain of research suggests that autism has no single cause, but is likely a combination of factors, including genetics. Kennedy has since walked that timeline back, telling CNN, “it will probably take us another six months.” No proven link Tylenols maker Kenvue told Fast Company in a statement that there is no proven link between acetaminophen and autism. “To date, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and leading medical organizations agree on the safety of acetaminophen, its use during pregnancy, and the information provided on the label.”“We advise expecting mothers to speak to their healthcare professionals before taking any over-the-counter medications, including acetaminophen, as they are best positioned to advise their patients on whether taking acetaminophen is appropriate based on their unique medical conditions. The FDA has not found any “clear evidence” that acetaminophen during pregnancy “causes adverse pregnancy, birth, neurobehavioral, or developmental outcomes.” It also recommends that pregnant persons talk to their care providers before using any medications. Fast Company reached out to the department of Health and Human Services for comment, but did not hear back by the time of publication.
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E-Commerce
Last month, the online prediction market Kalshi filed some very dry but potentially very lucrative paperwork with the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The company, which allows users to predict real-world event outcomes that range from election winners to the annual number of U.S. cases of whooping cough, announced its intent to offer markets for football point spreads, totals, and individual touchdown scorers, too. In other words, Kalshi users would no longer be limited to predicting game results, awards winners, win totals, and end-of-season champions. Instead, they would be able to make these sportsbook-style wagers on the platform, without going through a state-licensed sportsbook to do it. Technically, Kalshi doesnt take bets or set odds itself, and the company carefully avoids referring to its business as gambling. Instead, it enables customers to trade event contracts priced between 1 and 99 cents, where the prices roughly correspond to the percentage chance that the market believes a given outcome will occur. Kalshi, which allows trading both on its own site and also through its partnership with Robinhood, makes its money on transaction fees. When the market resolves, those who hold the winning position are paid out at $1 per share. For example, if Kalshi offers a contract for whether Justin Jefferson catches a touchdown on Monday Night Football, and Jefferson promptly reels in a 77-yard bomb and then hits the Griddy, those who bought shares in the yes position would get to cash in. Those who banked on Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy struggling to throw downfield in his regular-season debut would get nothing. (As of this writing, Robinhood allows users to bet on some sports outcomes via its Kalshi partnership, but doesnt yet offer Kalshis prop bets.) Given how ubiquitous sports gambling has become since the Supreme Court struck down a near-total federal ban in 2018, the distinction between buying an event contract on Kalshi and placing a conventional bet on the DraftKings app might seem irrelevant. But there are differences that matter. Because Kalshi is regulated by the federal government, its contracts effectively enable people to skirt local regulations and place bets in states where sports betting is still illegalamong others, California, Georgia, and Texas. Unlike state-licensed sportsbooks, federally regulated exchanges like Kalshi are also not subject to state-mandated procedures for reporting suspicious sports betting patterns. Last year, Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter received a lifetime ban from the NBA for tipping off bettors that he intended to fake an injury to ensure that his under bets would hit. The NBA opened an investigation after sportsbooks found that prop bets on Porter, a fringe player on a bad team, were among the biggest winners of the night. If a player were to try the same stunt on a platform like Kalshi, it might be more challenging to find out that the game is literally rigged. In most states, users must be 21 to use DraftKings or FanDuel. Kalshi users, however, need only to be 18. Studies show that problem gamblers are disproportionately young men, who now have the ability to gamble away paychecks, inheritances, and student loan money via smartphone app. In my view, the nationwide availability of a lightly regulated platform that functionally lowers the gambling age from 21 to 18 is troubling, to say the least. Like all exchanges, Kalshi is subject to CFTC-required integrity and surveillance requirements. It also works with a third-party service to monitor for suspicious sports betting-related activity, and recently debuted responsible risk management tools, like those in use at sportsbooks, that allow users to cap their deposits, take breaks, and opt out of market access. That said, when asked about consumer protection concerns earlier this year, a lawyer for Kalshi said, People are adults, and theyre allowed to spend their money however they want it, and if they lose their shirt, thats on thema response that does not suggest that the company is terribly concerned with some of the bigger-picture issues here. To date, a few state regulators have sent the company cease-and-desist letters, but with limited success. Federal district courts in Nevada and New Jersey have found that the CFTCs jurisdiction over exchanges like Kalshi is likely exclusive, which means states would not have the legal authority to regulate themor, critically, to tax them. Robinhood quickly filed lawsuits of its own in both states, arguing that Kalshis victories clear the way for Robinhood to offer sports contracts on its platform, too. Those leery of using events contracts as a backdoor form of sports betting have what might, on paper, sound like a pretty good argument: CFTC regulations bar exchanges like Kalshi from listing contracts related to gaming, which, at least in the colloquial sense of the word, would seem to cover point spreads and player props. And as ESPNs David Purdum and Shwetha Surendran reported earlier this year, in early 2024, Kalshis own lawyers argued that this gaming language bars the sports-related contracts that the company is now rolling out. Why? At the time, the company wanted to list contracts for election outcomes, and asserted that regulators intended gaming to refer to sports, and thus not to politics. A federal court eventually greenlit Kalshis offerings in time for the 2024 elections, and the company says it posted around $1 billion in trading volume on the results. With the election behind it, though, Kalshi has spent 2025 pushing further into sports, notwithstanding its lawyers earlier arguments. And under President Donald Trump, Kalshi has good reasons to be optimistic about its chances of clearing whatever regulatory hurdles might stand in its way. In January, the company announced that Trumps son, Donald, Jr., would serve as a strategic advisor, touting his ability to help push prediction markets into the mainstream. Trumps nominee to serve as the new CFTC chair, Brian Quintenz, is a Kalshi shareholder who sits on Kalshis board of directors. Quintenz plans to resign and sell his stock if confirmed; even so, if a recently departed board member takes over as the head of its primary regulator, Kalshi is probably going to feel pretty good about that relationship going forward. Already, Kalshi has scored a major legal victory since Trump took office: Shortly after that federal court allowed the company to list contracts related to the 2024 elections, the Biden administration appealed. But under new leadership, the CFTC voluntarily dropped its appeal in May, leaving users free to take long positions on whether JD Vance, Gavin Newsom, or someone else wins the White House in 2028. Kalshi has promised a slow rollout of its contracts on NFL props, and told InGame, a publication that covers the sports betting industry, that it has no immediate plans to offer college football props. But the success of its initial filings seems to have further emboldened the company: This week, Kalshi submitted additional paperwork to the CFTC to allow users to more or less construct parlayspopular sportsbook bets that require multiple events, or legs, to occur in order to pay out. One contracta market for predicting whether the Dallas Cowboys would beat the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday, and the teams would combine to score at least 48 points, and Cowboys receiver CeeDee Lamb would score a touchdownwent live shortly before kickoff. (It did not hit.) To date, traditional sportsbooks have been publicly critical of exchanges like Kalshia position that makes sense, given that they have 70 billion reasons and counting to maintain their oligopoly on the market. But under an administration that has adopted a lax, industry-friendly stance to prediction markets regulation, sportsbooks are increasingly looking to get in on the action themselves: If they can persuade at least some customers to make basically the same wagers, but on a platform that isnt subject to state regulation or state taxes, they are going to get over their initial skepticism in a hurry. Sure enough, Underdog recently partnered with Crypto.com, which rolled out a sports event contract business in December. FanDuel has announced that it will offer event contracts with the CME Group, a derivatives marketplace; DraftKings says it is evaluating its prediction market-adjacent options, too. The growth of prediction market-based sports betting doesnt mean that traditional sports betting will disappear. But it does mean that the problems created by legal sports gamblingthe addiction epidemic, the embarrassing scandals, an increasingly captured sports media ecosystem that is seemingly incapable of covering games without incorporating an officially sponsored betting angleare going to get worse. The companies that take bets (by any name) care about making money. This is just one more way for them to do it.
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E-Commerce
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