Reddit Sues Anthropic Over Alleged AI Training Data Heist—Because Who Needs Permission in the Wild West of Tech?

Reddit just dropped the legal hammer on AI startup Anthropic, accusing it of scraping platform content without consent to train its models. Because nothing says 'innovation' like allegedly bypassing copyright laws.

The lawsuit—filed in a California court—claims Anthropic used Reddit's user-generated posts as free training fuel. No licensing deals, no revenue-sharing—just classic Silicon Valley 'ask forgiveness later' energy.

This comes as AI firms face mounting scrutiny over data sourcing practices. Reddit's move follows similar actions by publishers and artists—turns out, 'fair use' arguments don't fly when you're building billion-dollar models.

Bonus finance snark: At least Anthropic didn't try to tokenize the stolen data—that would've required actual blockchain innovation instead of just old-fashioned IP appropriation.

Reddiot accuses Anthropic of data scraping

According to Reddit, Anthropic has accessed its content over 100,000 times since July 2024, even after claiming to have stopped crawling in May 2024. 

Reddit stated that despite what its marketing material says, Anthropic does not care about its rules or users. “It believes it is entitled to take whatever content it wants and use that content however it desires, with impunity,” the filing said.

Reddit says it has established rules dictating how its data can be used, and it said they are clearly memorialized in the user agreement.

“While Reddit has always been of the mind that the community should be open to all humans looking for connection and community, it has never allowed its platform and the countless communities who find a home on it to be appropriated by commercial actors seeking to create billion-dollar enterprises and offering nothing in return to Reddit and its users,” the complaint says.

The company is seeking damages, restitution, and an injunction to prevent further unauthorized use. 

However, Anthropic has contested the claims and, in an emailed statement, has stated it will defend itself “vigorously.”

OpenAI partnership sets precedent for Reddit’s expectations of AI companies

Reddit has been at the forefront of data usage rights since the generative AI boom started with the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022. Its site is ripe with user-generated information about hundreds of thousands of topics and has been a main source of training for large AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude.

However, Reddit has a partnership with OpenAI, which was announced in May, that allows the company to train its AI models on Reddit content. The company has a similar agreement with Google, but it does not have any such arrangement with Anthropic. 

In the recently filed lawsuit, Reddit highlighted how “other giants in the AI space understand and respect Reddit’s rules,” naming OpenAI and Google as companies that “are permitted to use public Reddit content but only after agreeing to “licensing terms” protecting user privacy.

Reddit’s lawsuit against Anthropic emphasizes that Anthropic bypassed such agreements, scraping data without permission, which reportedly undermines its business model and user trust. 

Reddit’s experience with OpenAI may have heightened its sensitivity to data misuse, which is now prompting the legal action to protect its market for data licensing.  Its agreement with OpenAI is characterized by a formal licensing deal with clear terms, which seems to have now set the precedent for Reddit’s involvement with AI companies. 

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