This positioning informs its data requirements, according to three of the executives, who were told in negotiations that the company has only ever considered paying for unique, hard-to-access data sets, rather than journalism produced by news or mainstream publishers.
“[Anthropic] more or less told me that, unless I had access to half a million medical journal articles in Dutch, that they were not interested,” said a second media executive, who has negotiated with the company on behalf of two separate publishers.
A legal mystery
Despite its exceptional refusal to sign licensing deals, Anthropic is nearly alone in avoiding any legal blowback. (Elon Musk’s xAI also has no licensing deals or related legal suits.)
Among other factors, the company has fortunate timing to thank for its lack of litigation, according to all five of the people.
OpenAI was the first major entrant in the AI space, and as such, it has borne the brunt of related legal action, including an ongoing lawsuit from The New York Times.
“First through the wall gets bloody,” said a third media executive, who has engaged in conversations with the firm.
These lawsuits are also prohibitively expensive for the average news operation; The Times has spent nearly $30 million on its court case against OpenAI, according to its quarterly reports. This price tag reduces the number of media companies that can afford to wage these protracted contests down to a select few.
As a result, given the litigation pending against firms like OpenAI and others, other media firms have likely held off on suing Anthropic simply because such a suit would prove costly and would likely be redundant, according to three of the executives.
On a more qualitative basis, Anthropic has also cultivated a brand reputation that makes it less inviting of legal action, according to two of the executives.
The founder and CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, has called attention to the potential dangers of AI, including its ability to eliminate jobs and threaten national security. This public handwringing contrasts with the messaging of OpenAI founder and CEO Sam Altman, who has, at times, callously framed AI and its downstream effects as unavoidable.
“Some of the public relations that [Anthropic] has done on themselves is very good,” said the fourth media executive. “They have positioned themselves as the good actors in the space, as doing no harm.”
The narratives developed around the two firms influence the way in which consumers and businesses interact with them.
In August, for instance, an influencer retreat that OpenAI orchestrated in upstate New York was widely criticized online. Anthropic, however, has hosted several similar influencer activations, including a weeklong merchandise pop-up and an exclusive influencer dinner at a restaurant in New York’s West Village, that generated long lines and positive reception.
Taken together, these factors help explain how Anthropic has found itself in such an exceptional position. How long that good fortune will last is another question entirely.
