Anthropic Trained Claude on Donald Passman’s Music Industry Bible Without His Permission. His Payout? $5,000.

11th Edition of Donald Passman’s music industry bible, All You Need to Know About the Music Business.

Since 1991, music industry attorney Donald Passman has sold more than half a million copies of his industry survival guide, All You Need to Know About the Music Business. Thanks to a federal court decision this week, Anthropic was allowed to train Claude on more than ten editions of the book for just a few thousand dollars.

Has AI dystopia started yet? For many, the opening acts of this nightmarish play are well underway.

Enter music industry attorney Donald Passman, whose industry guide, All You Need to Know About the Music Business, has been regarded as a bible for decades. Indeed, the first edition of All You Need first appeared in 1991, which means that a substantial chunk of the music industry not only knows this book, they also grew up on it during their formative years in the business.

In fact, Passman’s book has sold more than 500,000 copies across more than ten editions, according to his publisher, Simon & Schuster.

Now, all those nuggets of industry knowledge have been hoovered up by Anthropic, which trained Claude on Passman’s books — and millions of others — for years without receiving permission from any of the authors involved.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Anthropic trained Claude on millions of books without permission. But that decision sparked a major class action lawsuit — Bartz v. Anthropic PBC — that ultimately resulted in a massive, $1.5 billion settlement for impacted authors.

The agreement was hailed as a landmark decision, though of course, not every author wanted to play ball — particularly more successful authors.

Passman, like many other artists, didn’t want Anthropic training on his book in exchange for a measly check. Earlier this month, he filed legal paperwork to extricate himself from the recently forged settlement. Anthropic fought to keep him in the settlement class, and earlier this week, a federal judge ruled that Passman can’t opt out.

That’s harsh news for Passman, who unfortunately learned about the settlement agreement too late.

Internal emails with Passman’s publisher, Simon & Schuster, revealed a striking level of confusion and inaction about the settlement. Somehow, Passman never learned about the class action decision, and Simon & Schuster executives appeared, well, clueless about it.

Represented by attorney Kenneth Freundlich, Passman eventually moved for a late opt-out, arguing that he never received direct, individualized notice of the settlement before the February 2026 deadline. The reasons for wanting out seem obvious: smaller creators often benefit from class actions, but high-profile creators stand to lose significant legal and monetary leverage by being bound to blanket class terms.

Passman’s filing noted that his publisher, Simon & Schuster, failed to notify him of the proceedings. Passman himself was also unaware of the agreement.

But Anthropic argued that Passman—a sophisticated attorney—failed to demonstrate “excusable neglect” and that the court-approved notice campaign satisfied due process.

Ultimately, federal judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín formally denied Passman’s request to opt out in her order approving the $1.5 billion settlement and its details. Martínez-Olguín cited records from the settlement administrator showing that multiple notices were mailed to his address—none of which were returned as undelivered—and noted that Passman had inquired about the settlement with his publisher as early as April.

As a result, Passman remains bound to the settlement terms, granting Anthropic the right to utilize various editions of his book in exchange for a standard class payout.

If none of that sounds fair, the next part will seem downright criminal.

After that decision was handed down, DMN started researching how much Anthropic was planning to pay Passman for the privilege of using his entire, 10-plus volume book series. According to the Authors Guild, each eligible work is likely to receive between $1,200 and $1,500 after a 50/50 split with the publisher (in this case, Simon & Schuster, who forgot to tell Passman about the settlement).

In fact, $1,500 is the upper limit, with attorneys’ fees and administrative costs lowering the ultimate payout to the lower-end $1,200 amount.

Using Anthropic’s settlement portal, the information on Passman’s books was easy to find. But Anthropic only referenced four of Passman’s editions, valued at the aforementioned $1,200-$1,500 payout, which ends up totaling about $5,000.

Moving forward, anyone wanting to learn ‘everything they need to know about the music business’ can now get it from Claude. Exactly how much that cannibalizes Passman’s books is unclear, though it’s unlikely to boost Passman’s book sales in the future.

Also unclear is whether Passman plans to fight back against Anthropic. So far, neither Passman nor his attorney has offered any comment to DMN — but stay tuned.