Authors Guild Asks Publishers to Share Anthropic Money

The Authors Guild wants publishers to drop claims on long out-of-print books and to pay authors when a house failed to register the copyright in time.

What is the Authors Guild asking publishers to do with the Anthropic money? Share more of it, in two kinds of claims. Publishers Weekly reported the request on September 28, 2026, from the Guild's September 25 newsletter. The $1.5 billion copyright settlement is being divided among publishers, authors, and lawyers. The Guild's ask covers two situations: a book that has been out of print for years, and a book kept out of the settlement because the publisher missed a copyright registration. The Publishing Times covered the court's final approval in an earlier explainer.

Out-of-print books

In the September 25 newsletter, the Guild called on publishers to voluntarily withdraw their claims from books that have been long out of print, regardless of whether there is proof that rights have formally reverted to the author under the contract.

The Guild said it has heard from "far too many authors whose books have been out of print and have not had any communication from their publishers" for decades, while the publisher is still claiming 50% of the payout.

In an interview with Publishers Weekly on September 9, Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger said a lack of clarity over rights reversion was the most common problem the Guild was hearing about, largely because many publisher records are incomplete or totally missing.

"Let's please agree that those rights should have reverted and the author deserves 100 percent," the Guild wrote in the newsletter.

Books left out because they were not registered

Authors have also complained that works were left out because publishers had not registered them on time, though registration was required. Only works registered with the U.S. Copyright Office and actually downloaded by Anthropic are entitled to a payout, Publishers Weekly notes.

The Guild is calling on publishers to pay 50% of the award amount per title to authors whose works meet all three of these tests, as Publishers Weekly reported them:

The book was published before the download dates set in the settlement agreement, July 2021 and August 2022.
The book is on LibGen or Pirate Mirror Library, the pirate sites from which Anthropic downloaded books.
The publisher had a contractual obligation to register the copyright and failed to do so.

What the Guild says is at stake

Asking publishers to share more of the proceeds, the Guild notes that many publishers will receive large payouts from the settlement, while most authors will get nothing "more than a modest vacation or the ability to pay bills from the settlement."

The Guild also wrote that even with the Anthropic settlement and other litigation, "AI models continue to gorge books without the consent of their authors and publishers, now through destructive scanning. As an industry we face a decisive moment, and it behooves us all to look out for each other."

Deadlines and where to write

The Friday newsletter also updated the claiming process. Authors now have 60 days from the day they received their notice to file the necessary paperwork, rather than the original 30 days.

The Guild advised authors that the settlement administrator has emailed class members whose publishers erroneously claimed 100% of the payout and were fixing those errors. The emails began the week of September 14.

Publishers Weekly reports that all five of the largest trade publishers have set up mailboxes so their authors can ask for help:

Why it matters for authors

Where a publisher is still claiming half of a book that has been out of print for decades, the Guild is asking that house to withdraw the claim so the author can take 100 percent. Where a missed registration kept a book out of the class, the Guild is asking the house to pay the author half of the award amount per title. Authors who already have a notice have the 60-day filing window the Guild described. Authors at one of those five houses can write the mailbox Publishers Weekly listed.

Sources

Publishers Weekly: Authors Guild Calls on Publishers to Share Anthropic Wealth (September 28, 2026)

Authors Guild Asks Publishers to Share More of the Anthropic Settlement