Reddit Sues Anthropic Over AI Training Data | Latest News

Reddit Files Lawsuit Against Anthropic Over AI Training Data

Reddit has initiated legal action against Anthropic, alleging the unauthorized utilization of its data for the training of artificial intelligence models. The complaint, submitted in a Northern California court on Wednesday, centers around a perceived lack of a valid licensing agreement.

Allegations of Unauthorized Data Use

Reddit asserts that Anthropic’s commercial exploitation of the platform’s data was conducted unlawfully. The lawsuit further claims a violation of Reddit’s established user agreement by the AI startup.

A Growing Trend of Legal Challenges

This legal challenge positions Reddit as the first major technology company to formally contest an AI model provider’s data training practices. It joins a growing number of publishers pursuing similar lawsuits against technology firms.

Several prominent cases are currently underway, including:

• The New York Times suing OpenAI and Microsoft for training on news articles without proper compensation or consent.
• Sarah Silverman and other authors filing a lawsuit against Meta for utilizing their books to train AI models without authorization.
• Music publishers and artists bringing claims against AI startups specializing in audio, video, and image generation, alleging content misuse.

Reddit's Stance on Data Exploitation

“We will not tolerate profit-seeking entities like Anthropic commercially exploiting Reddit content for billions of dollars without any return for redditors or respect for their privacy,” stated Ben Lee, Reddit’s chief legal officer, in a communication to TechCrunch.

Existing AI Partnerships

It is noteworthy that Reddit has established agreements with other AI model providers, notably OpenAI and Google. These agreements permit the training of AI models on Reddit’s data and the inclusion of the site’s posts within the responses of their respective AI chatbots.

However, Reddit maintains that OpenAI and Google are subject to specific terms designed to safeguard user interests and privacy.

Sam Altman's Connection to Reddit

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, holds an 8.7% stake in Reddit, making him the third-largest shareholder. He previously served as a member of the company’s board of directors.

Attempts at Resolution

According to the filing, Reddit contacted Anthropic to clarify that the AI startup lacked authorization to scrape or utilize Reddit’s content. Reddit alleges that Anthropic “refused to engage” in discussions.

Anthropic's Response

“We disagree with Reddit’s claims and will defend ourselves vigorously,” stated Anthropic spokesperson Danielle Ghighlieri in an emailed statement to TechCrunch.

Ignoring Robots.txt

Reddit’s complaint alleges that Anthropic’s scraper bots disregarded the site’s robots.txt files, a standard protocol indicating to automated systems that websites should not be crawled. The platform claims that even after Anthropic asserted it had blocked its bots from scraping Reddit in 2024, the bots continued to scrape the platform over 100,000 times.

Reddit's Demands

Reddit is seeking compensatory damages from Anthropic, along with restitution equivalent to the profits Anthropic has gained through scraping Reddit’s content. Furthermore, Reddit requests a court injunction to prevent Anthropic from continuing to utilize Reddit’s content.