Reddit sues Anthropic for illegally scraping content to train AI
What's the story
Reddit has filed a lawsuit against AI start-up Anthropic, accusing it of illegally using data from the social media platform to train its artificial intelligence models. The complaint was lodged in the San Francisco Superior Court on Wednesday. Reddit claims that Anthropic's actions have caused significant harm to its business and undermined its content licensing deals with Google and OpenAI. This case marks another instance in the ongoing debate over AI companies' alleged unauthorized use of third-party content.
Dispute escalation
We disagree with Reddit's claims: Anthropic
In response to the lawsuit, an Anthropic spokesperson said, "We disagree with Reddit's claims and will defend ourselves vigorously." The complaint alleges that despite promising last July to block its bots from accessing Reddit's platform, Anthropic has not agreed to a licensing agreement. The company also cited Claude admitting it was "trained on at least some Reddit data" and didn't know if that content was deleted.
Bot activity
'Anthropic scraped content for commercial purposes'
The complaint further alleges that Anthropic's bots have accessed or attempted to access Reddit content over 100,000 times. This is in direct contradiction to the company's public image as an AI "white knight" committed to trust and honesty. By scraping content for commercial purposes, Reddit claims Anthropic violated its user policy and "enriched itself to the tune of tens of billions of dollars."
Policy clarification
Lawsuit seeks restitution and punitive damages
Reddit's Chief Legal Officer Ben Lee clarified their position, saying they "believe in an open internet," but AI companies need "clear limitations" on how they use content they scrape. The lawsuit seeks unspecified restoration and punitive damages, as well as an injunction preventing Anthropic from using Reddit content for commercial purposes. This case highlights the ongoing tension between social media platforms and AI companies over data usage rights.