Reddit sues Anthropic for breach of contract, wrongful use of data

Reddit (RDDT) has filed a lawsuit against AI startutp Anthropic for wrongful use of Reddit content, according to a filing in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of San Francisco. “Unlike its competitors, Anthropic has refused to agree to respect Reddit users’ basic privacy rights, including removing deleted posts from its systems. Anthropic is in fact trained on the most robust online discussion platform in the world-Reddit.com,” Reddit said in the filing. “The unauthorized commercial use of Reddit content harms Reddit, which has established a market for licensing content, through which Reddit imposes meaningful guardrails on the use of such content to protect both Reddit and its users. Other giants in the AI space understand and respect Reddit’s rules. That is why companies like OpenAI and Google have entered into formal partnerships with Reddit whereby they are permitted to use public Reddit content but only after agreeing to Reddit’s licensing terms that protect Reddit and its users’ interests and privacy. For its part, despite what its marketing material says, Anthropic does not care about Reddit’s rules or users: it believes it is entitled to take whatever content it wants and use that content however it desires, with impunity. Not so.” Reddit added in the filing that it brings this action to compel Anthropic to abide by its contractual and other legal obligations and to seek damages for Anthropic’s breaches of those obligations.