AI Daily: Anthropic judge rejects proposed $1.5B AI copyright settlement

Catch up on the top artificial intelligence news and commentary by Wall Street analysts on publicly traded companies in the space with this daily recap compiled by The Fly:

AI COPYRIGHT SETTLEMENT: A judge has rejected Amazon (AMZN) – and Alphabet (GOOGL) -backed Anthropic’s $1.5B copyright settlement over concerns that class lawyers are striking a deal behind the scenes that will be forced on authors, Bloomberg Law’s Annelise Levy reports. Judge William Alsup at the hearing said the motion to approve the deal was denied without prejudice, but in a minute order after the hearing said approval is postponed pending submission of further clarifying information. During the first hearing since the deal was announced on September 5, Alsup said he felt “misled” and needs to see more information about the claim process for class members. The Fly notes that the proposed deal marks the first settlement in a string of lawsuits against tech companies including OpenAI, Microsoft (MSFT), and Meta Platforms (META) over their use of copyrighted material to train generative AI systems.

AI INFRASTRUCTURE: Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS) announced an agreement to deliver AI infrastructure to Microsoft (MSFT). Under this multi-year agreement, Nebius will deliver dedicated capacity to Microsoft from its new data center in Vineland, New Jersey starting later this year. Arkady Volozh, founder and CEO of Nebius, said: “Nebius’s core AI cloud business, serving customers from AI startups to enterprises, is performing exceptionally well. We have also said that, in addition to our core business, we expect to secure significant long-term committed contracts with leading AI labs and big tech companies. I’m happy to announce the first of these contracts, and I believe there are more to come. The economics of the deal are attractive in their own right, but, significantly, the deal will also help us to accelerate the growth of our AI cloud business even further in 2026 and beyond.” Nebius expects to finance the capital expenditure associated with the contract through a combination of cash flow coming from the deal and the issuance of debt secured against the contract in the near term, at terms enhanced by the credit quality of the counterparty. The company is also evaluating a number of additional financing options to enable significantly faster growth than originally planned and will update the market on its financing strategy in due course.

LEAVING CALIFORNIA: OpenAI is facing scrutiny in California over its restructuring plan and has discussed a last-ditch option of moving out of the state, The Wall Street Journal’s Berber Jin reports. California’s attorney general is investigating if OpenAI’s restructuring violates charitable trust law, urged by nonprofits and labor groups. An OpenAI spokesman says the company has no plans to leave California. “We continue to work constructively with the offices of the Attorneys General of California and Delaware,” an OpenAI spokesman said.

MISPLACED AI CONCERNS: Wells Fargo upgraded Thomson Reuters (TRI) to Overweight from Equal Weight with a price target of $212, up from $187. The stock’s valuation has contracted on “misplaced” artificial intelligence concerns, the firm tells investors in a research note. Wells Fargo expects Thomson to benefit from AI, saying it should drive better pricing power and greater wallet share. Thomson’s legal organic constant currency growth should accelerate in the back half of 2025, driven by increased adoption of Westlaw Precision and Advantage, which are providing a pricing tailwind, contends the firm.