Reddit has filed a lawsuit accusing Anthropic of using the platform’s user-generated content to train its Claude AI models without permission or compensation. According to Reddit, Anthropic’s bots have been scraping massive volumes of posts and comments in violation of Reddit’s user agreement, which explicitly prohibits commercial use of site data without a licensing deal.
Challenging the “Ethical AI” Narrative
The lawsuit doesn’t just address data usage—it targets Anthropic’s public image. Known for branding itself as an ethical AI company, Anthropic is accused of misleading the public. Reddit claims that despite a 2024 statement in which Anthropic said it had stopped scraping Reddit, their servers logged over 100,000 access attempts by Anthropic’s bots in the following months.
The Privacy Stakes for Users
At the heart of the issue is user trust. Reddit highlights the difference between companies that have licensing deals—like Google and OpenAI—and Anthropic, which has refused to sign such agreements. Licensed partners agree to delete content that users remove from the platform, but Anthropic’s lack of an agreement means its models may still retain deleted posts in their training data. One court filing even shows Claude acknowledging it has no way to tell whether Reddit content was deleted after scraping.
What Reddit Wants
Reddit is seeking more than just financial damages for increased server costs and lost licensing revenue. The company is pushing for an injunction to stop Anthropic from using Reddit data entirely. Even more significantly, Reddit wants to block Anthropic from selling or licensing any product built using that data—potentially threatening the availability of Claude itself.
A Bigger Question for AI Development
This case could have far-reaching implications. Reddit is drawing a legal line, arguing that just because content is publicly viewable online doesn’t mean companies can freely use it for commercial AI training. If the court agrees, it could reshape how AI models are built and where data comes from.
This lawsuit spotlights the growing friction between AI innovation and digital ownership—raising critical questions about consent, compensation, and the future rules of the web.
Source: https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/news/reddit-sues-anthropic-over-ai-data-scraping/
