Reddit Takes Legal Action Against AI Startup Anthropic

Reddit has filed a lawsuit against AI startup Anthropic, alleging the company used its site data to train models without obtaining the necessary licensing agreement.

The company claims that the commercial use of its information contradicts the social platform’s user agreement and constitutes a legal violation.

Sam Altman is one of Reddit’s largest shareholders—he invested in the company back in 2014 and owns 8.7% of the shares. The head of OpenAI is the third-largest shareholder after Advance and Tencent.

Reddit is the first among tech giants to legally challenge AI developers over the training of neural networks. Similar legal disputes have occurred previously.

The New York Times filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft for setting up AI models based on its articles without payment or permission. A similar suit against Meta was filed by writers Sarah Silverman, Christopher Golden, and Richard Kadrey, claiming the company used their books to train a language model, infringing copyright.

In May 2024, eight daily newspapers owned by Alden Global Capital filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. They accused them of illegally using “millions of articles” to train AI products without permission.

“We will not tolerate profit-driven companies like Anthropic commercially exploiting Reddit content for billions in revenue without giving anything back to platform users and respecting their privacy,” stated Reddit’s chief legal officer Ben Lee.

Notably, Reddit has struck deals with other AI model providers, including OpenAI and Google. They are permitted to train neural networks on the platform’s data. It is claimed that the agreement ensures the protection of user interests and privacy.

“We disagree with Reddit’s claims and will vigorously defend ourselves,” commented Anthropic representative Daniel Giglieri.

In April 2023, it was revealed that Reddit aimed to start charging for access to its API from companies using it to collect data for training large language models.

Reddit demands compensation from Anthropic for the damages incurred and reimbursement for the amount the startup gained by using the platform’s content. The company also seeks a court order to prohibit further use of the information.

Previously, Anthropic started a blog for its chatbot Claude. It is filled with posts on technical topics related to various uses of the digital assistant.