Reddit sues Anthropic for allegedly scraping user data to train its AI model claude without permission

Reddit is taking Anthropic to court. On Wednesday, the social media company filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court, accusing the AI startup of using Reddit content without permission to train its AI models, despite previously claiming it had blocked its bots from accessing the platform.
The complaint marks another legal fight over how AI companies are sourcing the data they use to train their models. Anthropic, known for its Claude chatbot.
“We disagree with Reddit’s claims and will defend ourselves vigorously,” an Anthropic spokesperson said.
The case titled, Reddit Inc. v. Anthropic PBC, was filed in California Superior Court, San Francisco County, No. CGC-25-524892.
“Reddit sued the artificial intelligence startup Anthropic on Wednesday, accusing it of stealing data from the social media discussion website to train its AI models despite publicly assuring it wouldn’t,” Reuters reported.
According to the lawsuit, Anthropic trained Claude on Reddit content without a license, even after publicly saying it wouldn’t. Reddit points to a conversation where Claude reportedly admitted it was “trained on at least some Reddit data” and couldn’t confirm whether that content had been deleted.
Reddit says Anthropic’s bots tried to access or scrape its site over 100,000 times, ignoring its policies and bypassing what Reddit calls its “guardrails.” The lawsuit accuses Anthropic of styling itself as a responsible AI company while profiting from unlicensed use of user-generated content.
“Anthropic refuses to respect Reddit’s guardrails and enter into a license agreement,” the complaint says, calling out the startup for not following the lead of companies like Google and OpenAI that have struck licensing deals.
Reddit argues that Anthropic gained a financial advantage by skipping the licensing process and using scraped content for commercial gain. “Enriched itself to the tune of tens of billions of dollars,” the complaint states.
Ben Lee, Reddit’s Chief Legal Officer, said the company supports an open internet but wants clear rules around how AI companies use content they scrape from platforms like Reddit.
The two companies are neighbors—both based in San Francisco, less than a mile apart—but this legal fight could set a national precedent.
The lawsuit is asking for an injunction to block Anthropic from using Reddit data commercially and for financial damages. No specific dollar amount was disclosed.
Anthropic’s Claude models, including its newest versions, Opus 4 and Sonnet 4, launched on May 22. According to two sources, the company has reached an annualized revenue run rate of $3 billion.
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