Anthropic Used 21 Korean Books, Including 'Human Acts', for AI Training Without Permission

It has been revealed that the U.S. artificial intelligence company Anthropic used English-translated books by Korean authors, including Han Kang and Hwang Sok-yong, without authorization to train its AI chatbot, Claude.

According to the Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea) on the 17th, the institute discovered that 21 books by Korean authors were listed on the copyright settlement website related to an Anthropic lawsuit and notified the respective authors.

Anthropic had previously faced a class-action lawsuit over allegations of illegally downloading and using copyrighted works to train its AI models.

A U.S. court acknowledged about 500,000 copyright infringements, and the lawsuit was concluded in July of this year with Anthropic agreeing to pay a total of 1.5 billion dollars (approx. 2 trillion won) in damages.

The compensation is approximately 3,000 dollars (4.35 million won) per work, and domestic authors can also receive compensation if they participate in filing claims.

According to LTI Korea, the works whose contents were downloaded without permission by Anthropic include Kim Ae-ran's "My Palpitating Life", three other works by Kim Young-ha including "Your Republic Is Calling You", Kim Sum's "One Person", three works by Shin Kyung-sook including "Please Look After Mom", three works by Han Kang including "Human Acts", Hwang Sun-mi's "The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly", and Hwang Sok-yong's "The Guest".

An official from LTI Korea stated, "We will cooperate with copyright-related organizations and actively support legal actions if necessary to ensure that authors receive fair compensation."

Regarding the moves by overseas AI companies to mass-purchase books suspected of being used for training, the Korean Publishers Association also released an appeal the previous day urging fair compensation.

In the appeal, the Korean Publishers Association raised its voice, stating, "Without books, there is no AI. Yet, the people who actually made the books do not even know when, how, or by which AI their works were used. Because they cannot know, they cannot ask, refuse, or demand fair compensation."

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.