FILE PHOTO: The company logo for Reddit is displayed on a screen on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., May 15, 2024. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
- Reddit accuses Anthropic of accessing its content over 100,000 times despite public assurances.
- Anthropic refuses licensing deals while competitors Google and OpenAI have agreements.
- Lawsuit seeks damages and injunction against unauthorized commercial use of Reddit data.
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(Reuters) -Reddit sued the artificial intelligence startup Anthropic on Wednesday, accusing it of stealing data from the social media discussion website to train its AI models despite publicly assuring it wouldn’t.
The complaint filed in San Francisco Superior Court is the latest battle over AI companies’ alleged unauthorized use of third-party content. Anthropic’s backers include Amazon.com and Google parent Alphabet.
“We disagree with Reddit’s claims and will defend ourselves vigorously,” an Anthropic spokesperson said.
Anthropic Resists Licensing Agreement Despite Training on Reddit Content
According to the complaint, Anthropic has resisted entering a licensing agreement even as it trained its Claude chatbot on Reddit content, despite assuring last July it had blocked its bots from accessing Reddit’s platform.
Reddit quoted Claude admitting it was “trained on at least some Reddit data” and did not know if that content was deleted.
It also said Anthropic’s bots have accessed or tried to access Reddit content more than 100,000 times, undermining the company’s allegedly styling itself as an AI “white knight” committed to trust and honesty.
Reddit Seeks Damages and Injunction Against Unauthorized Use
“Anthropic refuses to respect Reddit’s guardrails and enter into a license agreement,” unlike Google and OpenAI, the complaint said.
By scraping content and using it for commercial purposes, Anthropic violated Reddit’s user policy and “enriched itself to the tune of tens of billions of dollars,” the complaint added.
In a statement, Reddit Chief Legal Officer Ben Lee said “we believe in an open internet,” but AI companies need “clear limitations” on how they use content they scrape.
Companies Located Minutes Apart as Legal Battle Unfolds
Reddit and Anthropic are based in San Francisco, about a 10-minute walk from each other.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified restitution and punitive damages, and an injunction prohibiting Anthropic from using Reddit content for commercial purposes.
Anthropic introduced its newest Claude models, Opus 4 and Sonnet 4, on May 22. Overall annualized revenue has reached $3 billion, two people familiar with the matter said last week.
The case is Reddit Inc v Anthropic PBC, California Superior Court, San Francisco County, No. CGC-25-524892.
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Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Bill Berkrot
