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Anthropic Wins Court Approval For Landmark $1.5bn Copyright Settlement

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A U.S. federal judge has granted final approval to Anthropic’s landmark $1.5 billion settlement with a class of authors who accused the artificial intelligence company of unlawfully using their books to train its Claude chatbot, bringing to a close one of the most closely watched copyright disputes in the AI industry and setting an important benchmark for dozens of similar lawsuits against major technology companies.

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin in San Francisco on Monday approved the settlement, rejecting objections from authors who argued that the payout was insufficient. The agreement is the largest known settlement in a U.S. copyright case and the first major AI copyright lawsuit involving generative AI training to reach a negotiated resolution.

The case has been widely viewed as a bellwether for the legal battles unfolding between copyright holders and AI developers over the use of books, news articles, music and other creative works to train large language models.

Judge William Alsup, who presided over much of the litigation before retiring, had granted preliminary approval to the settlement last September.

“We reached this settlement in 2025, after the court’s landmark ruling that training AI on books is fair use under copyright law, which remains the law today,” Anthropic Deputy General Counsel Aparna Sridhar said in a statement.

“We are pleased that more than 91% of authors and publishers covered by the settlement have claimed their share of the payment, and we’re looking forward to bringing this matter to a close.”

Lead plaintiffs’ attorney Justin Nelson described the agreement as a milestone for copyright enforcement.

“It is the largest known copyright recovery in history. We look forward to making distributions to the Class as promptly as possible,” Nelson said.

The litigation began in 2024, when a group of authors sued Anthropic, alleging the company copied pirated versions of their books without authorization to train Claude, its flagship generative AI model.

Anthropic, which is backed by Amazon and Alphabet, argued that using copyrighted books for AI training constituted fair use, a long-established doctrine in U.S. copyright law permitting limited use of protected works under certain circumstances.

In a landmark ruling last June, Judge Alsup largely agreed with Anthropic’s position, concluding that training AI models on copyrighted books was a transformative use protected under the fair use doctrine. The decision represented one of the most significant judicial victories for AI developers and has become a key legal precedent as courts consider similar claims against companies including OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, Google and others.

However, Alsup also found that Anthropic infringed copyright by maintaining a digital repository containing more than 7 million pirated books, describing the company’s “central library” as distinct from the AI training process itself because many of the works were retained without necessarily being used to train Claude.

That ruling left Anthropic exposed to potentially enormous statutory damages.

Before the settlement was reached, the case was scheduled to proceed to trial last December to determine damages related to the storage of the pirated books. Because U.S. copyright law allows statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work in cases involving willful infringement, legal analysts estimated Anthropic could theoretically have faced liabilities running into the hundreds of billions of dollars, although actual awards in copyright litigation are typically far lower.

The settlement eliminates that uncertainty while allowing Anthropic to avoid years of additional litigation and potential appeals. The agreement also provides significant compensation to participating authors and publishers without requiring them to prove individual damages.

According to Anthropic, more than 91% of eligible copyright holders have already claimed their share of the settlement fund, reflecting broad participation despite objections from a minority of authors.

Several authors challenged the settlement, arguing that the compensation failed to reflect the scale of Anthropic’s alleged infringement. Others contended that the agreement unfairly excluded certain copyright owners or awarded excessive legal fees to the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

Judge Martinez-Olguin rejected those objections, finding that the settlement represented a reasonable outcome given the litigation risks facing both sides.

The judge wrote that criticisms regarding the settlement amount were “not grounded in a realistic assessment of the overall risks and rewards of a trial.”

She also approved more than $101 million in attorneys’ fees, substantially below the $187.5 million requested by class counsel.

The settlement comes as AI developers face mounting legal challenges over the datasets used to train sophisticated generative AI systems. Publishers, authors, musicians, artists and media organizations have argued that technology companies have built commercially valuable AI products using copyrighted material without obtaining licenses or providing compensation.

Technology companies counter that AI training is fundamentally transformative, does not reproduce the original works for consumers, and therefore qualifies as fair use.

The Anthropic case is particularly significant because it produced one of the first major judicial rulings recognizing AI model training as fair use while simultaneously finding liability for maintaining unauthorized copies of copyrighted works. That distinction is likely to influence ongoing litigation across the United States as courts seek to balance copyright protections with technological innovation.

The settlement does not resolve all of Anthropic’s copyright disputes. Some authors and publishers opted out of the class action and are continuing to pursue separate lawsuits against the company, meaning additional legal battles over AI training practices remain underway.

China Weighs Tighter Export Controls On AI And Semiconductor Technologies As Tech Rivalry With U.S. Intensifies

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Chinese authorities are considering expanding export controls to cover advanced artificial intelligence and semiconductor technologies, a move that would significantly strengthen Beijing’s oversight of strategic technologies as competition with the United States increasingly extends beyond hardware to AI models, algorithms and chip design.

According to a Financial Times report on Tuesday, regulators are consulting leading Chinese technology companies on a range of potential restrictions aimed at preventing advanced domestic AI capabilities and semiconductor intellectual property from flowing overseas.

The discussions show Beijing now sees frontier AI technologies as strategic national assets, mirroring Washington’s restrictive approach to advanced chips, AI models and semiconductor manufacturing equipment. The reported measures would mark another escalation in the global technology rivalry, with both the United States and China moving to limit the international transfer of technologies viewed as critical to national security and economic competitiveness.

The report follows Reuters’ exclusive reporting earlier this month that Chinese authorities had convened meetings with major technology companies to discuss restricting overseas access to China’s most advanced AI models, including next-generation systems that have yet to be released publicly.

Those discussions highlighted growing concerns within Beijing that capable Chinese AI models could strengthen foreign competitors or be incorporated into overseas AI ecosystems. Rather than focusing solely on hardware exports, regulators are now examining ways to control the movement of AI capabilities themselves, including model parameters, training data and underlying technologies.

The latest consultations suggest China is developing a comprehensive export-control framework covering both physical semiconductor technologies and intangible AI assets.

According to the Financial Times, China’s Ministry of Commerce has been consulting AI developers including Alibaba, ByteDance and Zhipu regarding restrictions on transferring sensitive AI training data outside China.

Officials are also reportedly evaluating whether companies should be prevented from allowing foreign users to download model weights, the numerical parameters that determine how AI systems perform after training.

Model weights are regarded as strategically valuable because they enable developers to reproduce and fine-tune sophisticated AI systems without repeating the expensive training process. Restricting access to those weights would represent a significant shift toward tighter government oversight of China’s open-weight AI ecosystem, which has expanded rapidly over the past year through companies including Moonshot AI, Z.ai, MiniMax and Alibaba.

The discussions come as Chinese firms have narrowed the performance gap with leading U.S. AI developers by releasing capable open-weight models at substantially lower operating costs.

Chip Design Exports May Also Face New Controls

Beyond artificial intelligence, regulators are reportedly considering measures that would restrict overseas production of advanced semiconductors designed by Chinese companies. The proposals could prevent foreign foundries, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) and Qualcomm’s manufacturing partners, from fabricating cutting-edge chips based on designs developed by Chinese firms such as Huawei, Alibaba and ByteDance.

Such restrictions would represent a notable expansion of China’s export-control regime by focusing not only on manufacturing equipment and materials but also on semiconductor intellectual property. The move could complicate global semiconductor supply chains by limiting where Chinese-designed chips can be manufactured, particularly as U.S. export controls have already reduced Chinese access to the world’s most advanced fabrication technologies.

Potential Inclusion in Export-Control Catalogue

According to the report, the proposals could eventually be incorporated into the next revision of China’s catalogue of technologies that are prohibited or restricted from export.

That catalogue serves as the legal foundation for Beijing’s export-control regime and has increasingly been used to protect technologies viewed as strategically important. Officials are reportedly gathering feedback from industry participants before determining which technologies should ultimately be included.

The report also said regulators are considering restrictions on overseas acquisitions involving strategic technologies, including emerging areas such as agentic AI, where autonomous software systems perform complex tasks with limited human intervention.

The reported measures underscore how the technology competition between China and the United States has broadened significantly. Initially centered on semiconductor manufacturing equipment and advanced processors, the rivalry now encompasses AI models, algorithms, computing infrastructure, critical minerals and intellectual property.

Washington has imposed stringent restrictions on exports of advanced AI chips, semiconductor equipment and related technologies to China, while tightening rules designed to prevent Chinese entities from accessing advanced computing power through third countries. China has responded by accelerating domestic semiconductor development, expanding export controls on critical minerals including gallium, germanium and rare earth elements, and promoting indigenous AI ecosystems built around domestic hardware such as Huawei’s Ascend processors.

The latest proposals suggest Beijing is now moving toward a more comprehensive strategy that treats advanced AI systems and semiconductor designs as strategic technologies warranting export restrictions comparable to those already applied to critical minerals and other sensitive technologies.

The new controls, if implemented, are expected to further fragment global technology supply chains and reinforce the emergence of separate AI and semiconductor ecosystems led by the United States and China.

SBI Funds Shares Post Modest 7% Debut Despite $30.7bn IPO Demand, Raising Questions Over India’s Blockbuster Listing Pipeline

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Shares of SBI Funds Management, India’s largest asset manager, made a subdued stock market debut on Tuesday, listing at a 7% premium to their initial public offering (IPO) price despite attracting nearly $31 billion in investor bids, signaling that demand for large public offerings remains selective amid a challenging market environment.

The company, a joint venture between India’s State Bank of India (SBI) and Europe’s Amundi Group, raised about $1 billion through its IPO, making it one of India’s biggest public offerings of the year.

The stock opened at a 7% premium to its issue price, falling short of expectations for a stronger listing after the IPO was oversubscribed 41.6 times, with bids totaling 2.97 trillion rupees ($30.7 billion). Institutional investors drove much of the overwhelming demand during the subscription period.

The relatively modest listing gain reflects changing sentiment in India’s equity markets, where investors have become more valuation-conscious after years of blockbuster IPO performances.

According to a KPMG India report published in May, the average listing premium for Indian IPOs during the financial year ended March fell to 8%, sharply lower than the 28% average recorded a year earlier, indicating that companies are no longer enjoying the spectacular first-day gains that characterized India’s IPO boom.

A Key Test for India’s IPO Market

Market participants viewed SBI Funds’ listing as an important barometer for investor appetite ahead of several high-profile public offerings expected over the coming months.

Among the most anticipated are the planned IPOs of Jio Platforms, the digital arm of Reliance Industries, and the National Stock Exchange (NSE), both of which are expected to rank among India’s largest-ever listings. India’s primary market could see as much as $50 billion worth of IPOs this year, although geopolitical uncertainty, particularly the ongoing Iran war, remains a major risk to investor sentiment and capital market activity.

Escalating tensions in the Middle East have pushed energy prices higher, increasing inflationary pressures for major oil-importing economies such as India and raising concerns over corporate earnings and consumer spending.

SBI Funds enters the public markets from a position of considerable strength. The company managed 29.5 trillion rupees ($395 billion) in assets as of March, making it India’s largest asset management company by assets under management (AUM).

Its scale reflects the rapid expansion of India’s mutual fund industry over the past decade, driven by rising household participation in equity markets, increasing financial literacy and growing adoption of systematic investment plans (SIPs).

Speaking ahead of the listing, Olivier Mariée, Head of Amundi’s International Partner Networks and Joint Ventures and a member of SBI Funds’ board, emphasized the company’s long-term focus.

“We should look forward to building a sustainable company which will drive this market going forward,” he said.

Managing Director and Chief Executive Debasish Mishra outlined the firm’s broader ambition.

“Our aspiration is to be the fund manager to every Indian,” Mishra said.

India’s IPO Momentum Faces New Headwinds

India has been the world’s busiest IPO market over the past two years by the number of listings, benefiting from robust domestic investor participation, strong economic growth and deepening capital markets.

However, activity slowed during the first half of this year as global and domestic market conditions became more challenging.

The Indian economy has come under pressure from higher crude oil prices linked to the Iran conflict. As one of the world’s largest importers of crude oil, India remains particularly vulnerable to rising energy costs, which increase inflation, widen the trade deficit and weigh on consumer spending.

At the same time, global investor capital has increasingly rotated toward artificial intelligence-related companies, particularly semiconductor and technology firms in the United States, Taiwan and parts of Europe. India, which lacks globally dominant AI hardware or foundation model companies, has attracted comparatively less international capital during the AI investment boom.

Those factors have contributed to weaker equity market performance.

Since the beginning of the year, the benchmark Sensex has declined more than 9%, making it one of the weakest-performing major equity indices globally, while the Nifty 50 has fallen about 7.5%.

Despite the muted listing performance, analysts continue to view India’s long-term investment case favorably. The country’s expanding middle class, rising financial savings, increasing penetration of mutual funds, and growing retail investor participation continue to support structural growth in the asset management industry.

SBI Funds, backed by the country’s largest bank and Europe’s biggest asset manager, is expected to benefit from those long-term trends, even as short-term market volatility tempers investor enthusiasm for new listings.

However, the IPO’s modest debut is seen as an indication that investors remain willing to back high-quality companies but are becoming more disciplined on valuations, a shift that could shape pricing and performance for the wave of major listings expected to reach India’s capital markets over the remainder of the year.

ADNOC Commits $6.2bn To Umm Shaif Gas Expansion As UAE Accelerates LNG Ambitions

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Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) will invest $6.2 billion to develop the Umm Shaif Gas Cap, one of the United Arab Emirates’ largest offshore oil and gas projects, as the Gulf producer accelerates efforts to expand natural gas output, strengthen energy security and establish itself as a leading global supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The investment comes at a moment when global energy markets are in turmoil. The prolonged conflict in the Middle East and disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway that normally handles about 20% of global LNG trade and roughly a fifth of the world’s oil shipments, have heightened concerns over supply security and reinforced the importance of developing new gas resources outside traditional export routes.

ADNOC is developing the Umm Shaif Gas Cap alongside TotalEnergies, Eni and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). The project is expected to produce more than 600 million standard cubic feet per day of natural gas and associated gas liquids once operations begin by 2030, equivalent to nearly 10% of the UAE’s current daily natural gas consumption.

The project forms part of ADNOC’s broader integrated gas strategy, which aims to monetize the country’s vast gas reserves while supporting rising domestic demand, expanding LNG exports and strengthening the UAE’s position in increasingly competitive global gas markets.

The UAE possesses the world’s seventh-largest proven natural gas reserves, while maintaining crude oil production exceeding 4 million barrels per day. Abu Dhabi is also pursuing aggressive upstream expansion after the UAE exited OPEC earlier this year, removing production quota constraints and allowing the country to target oil production above 5 million barrels per day as early as next year.

“ADNOC is accelerating its integrated gas strategy to further harness the UAE’s vast gas resources and expand our global LNG platform, as global demand for natural gas continues to rise,” ADNOC Chief Executive Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber said in a statement.

The Umm Shaif investment underscores Abu Dhabi’s ambition to diversify beyond crude oil by becoming a major player in the rapidly expanding global LNG market, where demand is expected to remain robust as countries seek cleaner-burning alternatives to coal while ensuring energy security.

ADNOC has set a target of expanding LNG production capacity to 47 million metric tons per annum by 2035, supported by investments across production, liquefaction, shipping and global trading operations. The strategy aligns with forecasts from major energy agencies that natural gas will continue to play a critical role in the global energy mix over the coming decades, particularly in Asia, where demand for LNG continues to grow as economies transition toward lower-carbon fuels.

The latest investment also shows that there is increasing commercial value of gas following repeated geopolitical disruptions that have tightened global supplies and driven price volatility.

The project has gained additional significance as military tensions in the Gulf continue to disrupt regional energy flows. With the Strait of Hormuz remaining effectively closed amid the ongoing Middle East conflict, energy markets have become increasingly focused on supply resilience, particularly for LNG exporters.

The waterway serves as the primary export route for Qatar, one of the world’s largest LNG producers, and any prolonged disruption threatens to tighten global gas markets, particularly across Europe and Asia.

Against that backdrop, expanding domestic gas production has become both an economic and national security priority for the UAE.

Currently, roughly one-third of the country’s natural gas demand is met through pipeline imports from Qatar under the Dolphin Gas Project, an agreement scheduled to expire in 2032. Increasing domestic production through projects such as Umm Shaif would reduce Abu Dhabi’s dependence on imported gas while providing additional volumes for export as LNG, improving both energy independence and long-term revenue generation.

Beyond its economic importance, Umm Shaif occupies a central place in the UAE’s petroleum industry.

The offshore field has been producing hydrocarbons for more than six decades and hosted Abu Dhabi’s first offshore oil well. It supplied the crude used in the emirate’s inaugural oil exports in 1962, laying the foundation for what has become one of the world’s largest energy industries. The latest investment transforms the historic field into a cornerstone of the UAE’s next phase of energy development, shifting its focus increasingly toward natural gas and LNG as global demand evolves.

Japan Pledges $2.28tn Investment Drive Through 2040 to Revive Long-term Growth

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Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Tuesday unveiled her administration’s first comprehensive economic policy blueprint, pledging to mobilize more than 370 trillion yen ($2.28 trillion) in public and private investment through fiscal 2040 to revive long-term growth.

The plan, however, has been overshadowed by investor concerns that the government could pressure the Bank of Japan (BOJ) to keep interest rates low, fueling a selloff in government bonds.

The blueprint seeks to position investment in strategic industries as the centerpiece of Japan’s long-term growth plan, but repeated revisions to its language on monetary policy underscore growing market sensitivity over the relationship between the government and the central bank.

Japan’s government bond yields have climbed to multi-decade highs in recent weeks as investors worry that Takaichi’s emphasis on fiscal stimulus and accommodative monetary policy could delay efforts to contain inflation while worsening the country’s already heavy debt burden. The benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond yield, which reached a three-decade high of 2.9% on July 9, eased modestly to 2.73% on Tuesday but remains near levels not seen in decades.

The economic blueprint underwent several revisions before receiving cabinet approval after earlier drafts unsettled financial markets.

An initial version called for monetary policy that would “bolster private demand,” language that disappeared as bond yields continued rising. A subsequent draft linked monetary policy more directly to the government’s economic growth strategy, prompting another negative market reaction and further revisions.

The final document states that the BOJ should conduct monetary policy appropriately “to achieve stable price rises,” while adding a footnote referencing Japan’s law guaranteeing the central bank’s operational independence.

The blueprint nonetheless retains language calling for the BOJ to coordinate its policy with the government’s economic objectives, reflecting the longstanding framework established under Japanese law, which requires close cooperation while preserving the central bank’s authority over monetary decisions.

“To achieve a strong economy, it is very important for monetary policy to be conducted appropriately to see stable price rises,” the final blueprint said.

Echoes of Abenomics

Takaichi has consistently expressed support for the economic philosophy associated with former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose “Abenomics” strategy relied on aggressive fiscal stimulus, ultra-loose monetary policy and structural reforms to combat decades of deflation.

Her latest blueprint amplifies that approach by emphasizing government-led investment to stimulate private sector spending.

“Under the Takaichi administration, the government will take the initiative and, together with the private sector, invest in strategic areas, thereby ending the trend of under-investment that has mired Japan,” the document said.

The government plans to work alongside private businesses to channel capital into strategic sectors over the next 15 years, with combined public and private investment projected to exceed 370 trillion yen by fiscal 2040.

Unlike previous administrations, however, the blueprint avoids making explicit commitments to restoring fiscal health, instead stating that the government will seek to balance economic growth with “fiscal sustainability.”

Markets Remain Unconvinced

Investors remain concerned that the administration’s policy mix could increase pressure on the BOJ to slow or pause further interest rate increases, allowing the government to finance additional spending at lower borrowing costs.

Those concerns have intensified since Takaichi took office in October, as she has repeatedly pledged to expand fiscal spending while expressing reservations about the BOJ’s recent tightening cycle.

The BOJ ended nearly a decade of ultra-loose monetary policy in 2024 and has since raised its benchmark interest rate several times, including a hike in June. Even after those increases, Japan’s policy rate stands at just 1%, remaining among the lowest in the developed world.

The central bank has signaled that additional rate increases remain possible if inflation and wage growth continue evolving in line with its forecasts.

Any perception that political leaders are attempting to influence those decisions risks undermining confidence in the BOJ’s independence, a cornerstone of modern monetary policy.

Japan already carries the highest public debt burden among advanced economies, with government debt exceeding twice the size of annual economic output. Higher bond yields increase borrowing costs for the government, making investors especially sensitive to policies that could require additional debt issuance.

The combination of increased fiscal spending, persistent inflation and expectations of further BOJ tightening has driven Japanese government bond yields steadily higher in recent months.

Analysts say investors are increasingly demanding higher compensation to hold long-term Japanese debt amid uncertainty over the government’s fiscal trajectory.

“We’ve guided economic and fiscal policy paying due heed to fiscal sustainability and the need to maintain market trust. We will continue to do so based on this blueprint,” Takaichi said during a government panel meeting on Tuesday.

Some economists argue that revisions to the blueprint’s wording do little to address broader concerns about the administration’s policy intentions.

Former BOJ board member Seiji Adachi said markets remain focused on the government’s broader objective of maintaining low borrowing costs.

“The administration wants the BOJ to keep rates low so that it can issue more debt,” Adachi said.

“That’s not a good message to send to markets.”