AI and your rights as an author

AI touches authors in two ways now. Companies have trained models on books, sometimes pirated ones, and the courts are working out what they owe. And the stores where you sell are adding AI features that sit on top of your books, often without asking you. This guide covers what has actually happened, what you can do about it, and what you can't.

It is general information, not legal advice. If a lot of money or a contract dispute is involved, talk to a lawyer or your authors' society.

The Anthropic settlement

In the case known as Bartz v. Anthropic, authors sued Anthropic for copying books from pirated sources to train its AI models. The parties settled, and the court gave final approval on 20 July 2026. The fund is $1.5 billion (US dollars), which works out to roughly $3,000 per work.

Where things stand at the end of September 2026:

• The claims deadline has passed. It closed on 30 March 2026 (extended from 23 March). By then, 91% of the works on the list had been claimed.
• Allocation notices went out on 2 to 4 September. Each claimant got either a "Consolidated Claims Form Summary: No Disagreements" notice or a "Consolidated Claims Form Summary: Disagreements" notice, which flags a disagreement over who gets what share.
• The first payments are due between 1 and 15 November 2026, according to a court status report reported by Publishers Lunch. The settlement website says on or before 15 November. It only covers works where all the rights holders agree and all the payment details are in. Publishers Lunch reported an estimated first payment of about $2,203.56 per title, after fees, awards and expenses are taken out.
• Disputed works won't be paid in November. The money for a disputed work is held until the claimants agree. Disputes still open after the response window go to the settlement administrator and then, if needed, to a court-appointed Special Master who makes a final decision. There is no set date for those payments.

How the money is split

For books still in print with a publisher, the settlement's default is a 50/50 split between author and publisher. If you self-published, or your rights reverted to you, the author share is 100%. These default splits apply to non-education works. Education works follow the percentages in the publishing contract.

Publishers claiming too much

Writer Beware reported in September that some publishers, including large ones, are filing incorrect claims. The two common errors:

1. Claiming 50% to 100% of books whose rights have reverted to the author (the publisher's share should be nothing).
2. Claiming 100% of in-print books, where the default is 50/50.

Claims were also filed in the names of some literary agencies. Agents are not rights holders in the books they sell, and several agencies told Writer Beware these claims were mistakes.

If you received a disagreement notice

1. Log in to the allocation portal on the official settlement website with the Claim Number and PIN from your notice.
2. Check each work and the split being claimed.
3. If you disagree, update the allocation and upload your evidence: reversion letters, contracts, or proof that you self-published.
4. Respond within 60 days of receiving your notice. The window was extended from 30 days.

If you are self-published and hold all the rights, your notice may be straightforward. It is still worth reading carefully.

Speculators and scams around the settlement

In late 2025 Writer Beware reported that a law firm was advertising to authors, urging them to opt out of the settlement and sign up for a possible lawsuit of its own instead. The opt-out deadline passed on 9 February 2026. You never need to pay a third party to deal with the settlement. Use the official settlement website and the notices you were sent.

The OpenAI case

Authors have also sued OpenAI and Microsoft, with the Authors Guild and a list of well-known writers among the plaintiffs. In October 2025 Judge Sidney Stein, in the federal court in Manhattan, refused OpenAI's bid to throw out the authors' claim that ChatGPT's output can infringe their copyrights, so that part of the case went ahead. The authors' case combines lawsuits first filed in different courts. In September 2026 the authors' motion for partial summary judgment was unsealed; the Authors Guild expects briefing to run for months, with a hearing in early 2027.

There is no settlement and nothing for authors to claim. If anyone offers to "register" you for an OpenAI payout, treat it as a scam.

Amazon's AI features on your books

Three Kindle features use AI on books in the store. Two of them you cannot switch off.

The Authors Guild has objected to Ask This Book, arguing it turns books into a new interactive format for which rights should be negotiated and paid for. For now, if your book is on Kindle, readers may see AI summaries or answers drawn from it, and you have no setting to prevent that.

Kindle Translate

Kindle Translate is a free beta tool for KDP authors that you choose to use on your own books. It launched covering English to Spanish, Spanish to English and German to English, and Amazon announced French, Italian and Portuguese on 30 June 2026. Translated editions can be enrolled in KDP Select and Kindle Unlimited. Amazon says every translation is automatically checked for accuracy before publication, but that is a machine check, not a human reader.

The trade-off is quality control. It's free and fast, but unless you read the target language you can't check the result. A clumsy translation gets bad reviews under your name. If a market matters to you, have a fluent reader look at a sample before you publish it.

KDP's AI disclosure rules

Since September 2023, KDP has asked authors whether they used AI tools to create text, images or translations in a book. If you answer yes, you then say, separately for each of the three, whether AI made some sections or the entire work, and whether you edited it minimally or extensively. The question only covers one of the two kinds of AI use KDP's guidelines describe:

• AI-generated: text, images or translations created by an AI tool. You must disclose this, even if you edited it afterwards.
• AI-assisted: you created the work yourself and used AI tools to edit, refine, error-check or otherwise improve it. You don't have to disclose this.

The line is who made the content. If an AI wrote a chapter and you polished it, that is AI-generated. If you wrote the chapter and an AI suggested fixes to your grammar, that is AI-assisted.

Answer truthfully. The disclosure is part of what you tell Amazon when you publish, so treat it like any other publishing detail you are vouching for.

Why readers are wary: the Stony Brook study

In September 2026, Fortune reported on a Stony Brook University study of 14,419 self-published genre novels sold on Amazon between 2023 and 2026. Using AI-detection software, it found about 20% had "substantial" AI text, meaning more than a quarter of the prose was flagged as AI-generated. Detection software can be wrong, but the scale is the point.

That affects you even if you write every word yourself. Readers who have been burned may be suspicious of new indie authors. The practical answers are the ones that have always worked: a clear author voice, a consistent release history, honest reviews, and a direct relationship with readers through your email list. Some authors now say plainly on their website or in the back matter how they use (or don't use) AI. That is your call, but it costs nothing and some readers look for it.

Practical steps

1. Keep your contracts and reversion letters in one folder. The Anthropic dispute shows why: authors with paperwork can prove their share quickly.
2. If you have a settlement notice, act on it now. Check the split, upload evidence, and respond before your deadline.
3. Keep dated drafts. Version history and old files are simple evidence that you wrote your book.
4. Read the terms of any AI tool you use. Know what it does with the text you paste in, and whether its output can be sold where you plan to sell.
5. Disclose honestly on KDP. Know the difference between AI-generated and AI-assisted before you answer the AI question, and set the texts, images and translations dropdowns separately.
6. Decide on Kindle Translate deliberately. Only use it for a language you can have checked.
7. Ignore anyone charging to help with a settlement or lawsuit. Go to the official source.
8. Follow Writer Beware and the Authors Guild. Both track these cases closely and post updates when deadlines move.

Things are moving quickly. Dates and amounts here are correct at the time of writing; check the official settlement site before you act on any of them.