Reddit has initiated legal action against Anthropic, accusing the artificial intelligence company of unlawfully accessing and using user-generated content from its platform to develop its Claude AI models. The lawsuit, filed in California state court, alleges that Anthropic made over 100,000 unauthorized requests to Reddit’s servers, despite publicly proclaiming it had ceased such activities. Reddit’s complaint centers on the assertion that Anthropic disregarded both technical barriers and the platform’s terms of service. Allegedly, Anthropic circumvented protections meant to restrict automated scraping, such as Reddit’s robots.txt file.
Furthermore, Reddit claims that Anthropic violated user privacy by collecting personal posts, including those that had been deleted, for commercial use. Reddit emphasizes that it provides structured data access via licensing agreements with companies like OpenAI and Google. These agreements come with specific conditions regarding content usage, privacy protections, and data deletion. According to Reddit, Anthropic chose not to enter into such an agreement, opting instead to scrape data directly from the site, thus evading licensing fees and user protections.
The lawsuit references a research paper from 2021 co-authored by Anthropic’s CEO, which identified Reddit as a valuable training ground for language models. Instances where Claude reproduced Reddit posts almost verbatim, including deleted content, indicate to Reddit that Anthropic failed to implement necessary safeguards for user privacy and content removal. Reddit is seeking both financial damages and a court ruling to prevent Anthropic from using its content in future models. Anthropic has publicly stated its disagreement with the allegations and intends to defend its actions.
This legal action follows similar cases where Anthropic faced scrutiny over how it collects training data, including a class-action lawsuit filed by authors claiming unauthorized use of their writings and another from Universal Music Group regarding copyright infringement related to song lyrics. Distinct from those lawsuits, Reddit’s case focuses on breach of contract and unfair competition, highlighting that the data accessed is subject to terms Anthropic allegedly ignored. This key distinction may influence how other content-hosting platforms navigate their relationships with AI systems. Additionally, Reddit accuses Anthropic of public misrepresentation, claiming that the company’s assertions about respecting user rights contradict its behavior.
Following the lawsuit’s announcement, Reddit’s stock surged nearly 67%, suggesting investor approval of the legal strategy. The outcome of this case could establish crucial precedents regarding the balance between online content accessibility and the rights of users and content creators, as legal and ethical considerations surrounding data scraping in AI development intensify.