Reddit Lawsuit Against Anthropic AI Has Stakes for Sports
In a new lawsuit, Reddit accuses AI company Anthropic of illegally scraping its users' data—including posts authored by sports fans who use the popular online discussion platform.
Reddit's complaint, drafted by John B. Quinn and other attorneys from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, was filed on Wednesday in a California court. It contends Anthropic breached the Reddit user agreement by scraping Reddit content through its web crawler, ClaudeBot. The web crawler provides training data for Anthropic's AI tool, Claude, which relies on large language models (LLMs) that distill data and language.
More from Sportico.com
Prime Video NASCAR Coverage Uses AI to Show Hidden Race Story
Indy 500 Fans Use Record Amount of Data During Sellout Race
Who Killed the AAF? League's Demise Examined in Latest Rulings
Other claims in the complaint include tortious interference and unjust enrichment. Scraping Reddit content is portrayed as undermining Reddit's obligations to its more than 100 million daily active unique users, including to protect their privacy. Reddit also contends Anthropic subverts its assurances to users that they control their expressions, including when deleting posts from public view.
Scraping is key to AI. Automated technology makes requests to a website, then copies the results and tries to make sense of them. Anthropic, Reddit claims, finds Reddit data 'to be of the highest quality and well-suited for fine-tuning AI models' and useful for training AI. Anthropic allegedly violates users' privacy, since those users 'have no way of knowing' their data has been taken.
Reddit, valued at $6.4 billion in its initial public offering last year, has hundreds of thousands of 'subreddits,' or online communities that cover numerous shared interests. Many subreddits are sports related, including r/sports, which has 22 million fans, r/nba (17 million) and the college football-centered r/CFB (4.4 million). Some pro franchises, including the Miami Dolphins (r/miamidolphins) and Dallas Cowboys (r/cowboys), have official subreddits.
Reddit contends its unique features elevate its content and thus make the content more attractive to scraping endeavors. Reddit users submit posts, which can include original commentary, links, polls and videos, and they upvote or downvote content. This voting influences whether a post appears on the subreddit's front page or is more obscurely placed. Subreddit communities also self-police, with prohibitions on personal attacks, harassment, racism and spam. These practices can generate thoughtful and detailed commentary.
Reddit estimates that ClaudeBot's scraping of Reddit has 'catapulted Anthropic into its valuation of tens of billions of dollars.' Meanwhile, Reddit says the company and its users lose out, because they 'realize no benefits from the technology that they helped create.'
Anthropic allegedly trained ClaudeBot to extract data from Reddit starting in December 2021. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is quoted in the complaint as praising Reddit content, especially content found in prominent subreddits. Although Anthropic indicated it had stopped scraping Reddit in July 2024, Reddit says audit logs show Anthropic 'continued to deploy its automated bots to access Reddit content' more than 100,000 times in subsequent months.
Reddit also unfavorably compares Anthropic to OpenAI and Google, which are 'giants in the AI space.' Reddit says OpenAI and Google 'entered into formal partnerships with Reddit' that permitted them to use Reddit content but only in ways that 'protect Reddit and its users' interests and privacy.' In contrast, Anthropic is depicted as engaging in unauthorized activities.
In a statement shared with media, an Anthropic spokesperson said, 'we disagree with Reddit's claims, and we will defend ourselves vigorously.' In the weeks ahead, attorneys or Anthropic will answer Reddit's complaint and argue the company has not broken any laws.
Reddit v. Anthropic has implications beyond the posts of Reddit users. Web crawlers scraping is a constant activity on the Internet, including message boards, blogs and other forums where sports fans and followers express viewpoints. The use of this content to train AI without knowledge or explicit consent by users is a legal topic sure to stir debate in the years ahead.
Best of Sportico.com
College Athletes as Employees: Answering 25 Key Questions
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
10 minutes ago
- Associated Press
White Sox agree to 1-year contract with left-hander Tyler Alexander
CHICAGO (AP) — The Chicago White Sox added pitcher Tyler Alexander on Sunday, agreeing to a one-year contract with the veteran left-hander. Alexander, a Chicago native who turns 31 next month, was designated for assignment by Milwaukee last weekend. He cleared waivers and opted for free agency. Alexander went 3-5 with a 6.19 ERA and one save in 21 appearances for the Brewers this season, including four starts. He had 30 strikeouts and 12 walks over 36 1/3 innings. The White Sox also placed left-hander Jared Shuster on the 15-day injured list before their series finale against Kansas City. Shuster has a blister on his left hand. To make room for Alexander on the 40-man roster, left-hander Fraser Ellard was transferred to the 60-day injured list. Ellard has a left lat strain. Alexander is 20-33 with a 4.67 ERA in 164 career major league appearances, also playing for the Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays. ___ AP MLB:
Digital Trends
10 minutes ago
- Digital Trends
Apple's glass-like software redesign sounds cool, but it isn't exactly new
Apple and its obsession with aesthetics are a well-documented part of its history. At WWDC 2025, the company is going to embark on a fresh design chapter inspired by glass elements. Think transparency and reflections, carried over to the app icons, windows, and widgets on your iPhone's screen. The tablets and desktops, too. Word on the street is that 'glassmorphism' is back. Sebastiaan de With, an ex-Apple designer and the mind behind excellent apps like Kino and Halide, joked that after the WWDC keynote, you can no longer use the word glassmorphism. Recommended Videos Yet, glass is going to be the standout takeaway. Or maybe, we can go with something more elegant, like flowing water. Or the concept of Zen that inspired many at Apple, including co-founder Steve Jobs. 'Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,' Jobs told his biographer, Walter Isaacson. Apple has already given us a glimpse of its vision for a unified design language, thanks to the namesake OS running on the Vision Pro headset. However, this won't be the first time we're going to see glassmorphism on a mainstream device. What's glassmorphism, by the way? In the simplest terms, glassmorphism is a visual design style that's all about taking inspiration from glass, and specifically, its visual properties such as see-through effects, edge reflections, and depth. When implemented on a digital canvas for apps and windows, we get translucent UI effects and bokeh effects. So, how is Apple implementing it across iOS 26, macOS 26, iPadOS 26, and watchOS 26? 'The new interface elements are called Liquid Glass, and they have the sheen and see-through visuals of a glassy surface,' reports Bloomberg. The idea is to go from a flat 2D design to invoking a sense of 3D depth. 'Design elements look layered—with objects floating in space—and the top layer seems like a piece of virtual glass,' explains the Interaction Design Foundation. To achieve the glass-inspired design in software, blurred backgrounds are set against vivid colors, and outlines are created in a translucent style. It's more about mimicking the frosted glass look by putting the foreground against a blurred backdrop, preferably a gradient look with contrasting colors. The borders are light and have a subtle shadow to produce the depth and visual effects of glass, alongside heavy use of layering. Apple's design guide also alludes to the glass-inspired design ideology, with full videos giving a detailed walkthrough. 'The default window style consists of an upright plane that uses an unmodifiable background material called glass and includes a close button, window bar, and resize controls that let people close, move, and resize the window,' suggests the company. Not exactly a new novel concept Apple is not alien to the concept of glassmorphism. In fact, the company started implementing elements with macOS Big Sur back in 2020, pushing gradient minimalism with blurred-out background effects for app windows. Design experts refer to it as frosted glass aesthetics, and it continues to live till date. You can already see elements of this design in the control center of macOS Sequoia. Likewise, opening the app folder on iPadOS will give a glimpse of it. In fact, Apple first experimented with this design language in iOS 7, and subsequently made a pivot to the flatter design with solid colors that we now see on iPhones and Macs. Apple won't be the only player with a taste for glass-inspired UI design. Microsoft introduced its Fluent Design aesthetics in Windows 10, which adopted glassmorphic elements in the start menu and a few other places. It balanced a semi-transparent background with light shadows and sharp borders to achieve the effects. This wasn't Microsoft's first experience with this particular design language. That honor goes to the Aero Glass design in Windows Vista, roughly two decades ago. The Aero Glass scheme focused on achieving a frosted glass effect, which could appear borderline transparent in certain areas, such as the taskbar and Media Player's playback control bar. You can read all about it in Microsoft's archived developer guide here. Here's the fun part. Microsoft recently gave us the best look at what a truly glassmorphic design would look like on a computer, without actually putting it on a Windows machine. Sigh. Have a look: Why now? We're not sure exactly how the updated design language of iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS is going to look, except for rumors of a VisionOS-inspired makeover. As per Bloomberg, Apple is hoping to unify the design language across all its products. 'That will include transparency and shine effects in all of Apple's tool bars, in-app interfaces and controls,' says the outlet. But that's not the overarching goal. Apple is apparently preparing this design overhaul with the highly anticipated 20th anniversary iPhone in mind. That device will feature curved glass aesthetics and a seamless screen without any holes for the pill-shaped Face ID and selfie camera kit. It's going to mark the same kind of product evolution as the iPhone X did years ago. The iPhone X ditched the thick bezels and the physical Touch ID home button in favor of an all-screen appearance. Apple accordingly made changes to the UI and adjusted the gestures in iOS to help users with the transition. We'll get to know more about the upcoming iOS 26 overhaul is just a day from now.
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
You could cut the tension with a needle—7 SteamDB changes in the past week have Silksong hopefuls wondering if the final hour is upon us
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Silksong may, after many long years, finally be releasing—or it may not be. A shadowdrop could be arriving tomorrow, or our eternal vigil may never end. It's either the final 24 hours, or time has no meaning anymore. One thing's for certain: SteamDB has some updates. In addition to the updates released earlier this week, which included achievement data for multiple languages, Silksong has had support for Windows, Mac, and Linux added, visible via SteamDB. At the time of writing, Silksong's minimum requirements don't list Mac or Linux as possible platforms, however, Steam does provide support for them, and developers can prep their store pages to send out platform-specific packages. As always, the Silksong subreddit is being delightfully normal about the news. In one thread, you can even see the ever-cynical doubters (we're well past the point of tribalistic factions) starting to crack. "FUCK MY FLAIR SILKSONG TOMORROW," roars one frantic switcher. "I... CANT... DENY... IT... ANY... LONGER!" writes another, with the tone of the Incredible Hulk swelling out of his shirt. On one hand, it is mighty suspicious that the games' Steam page would receive such a ferocious flurry of updates—seven in total, including this one—before Summer Game Fest. With a bevvy of announcements to come, the idea that Team Cherry's doing some preparatory updating before finally releasing the dang thing isn't entirely out of the question. On the other hand, a few SteamDB updates aren't substantial proof of anything if you aren't scrabbling for every scrap of hope you can. Almost no game since Elden Ring has had this much feverish hype built up behind it and, in a way, the cultish chanting is outstripping what Silksong is likely bound to be: A very good metroidvania. Which, given I've played several since Hollow Knight, is only saying so much. If Team Cherry does do the funniest thing it can and shadowdrop Silksong in a manner of hours, it'll mark the end to all doubting and hoping, all coping and copium. No more daily Silksong news, no more crossed fingers, no more Silkposts. Bait used to be believable, but if it's the dawn of the final day, it shall be absent entirely. All I can say is, if this is indeed the end? Gentlebugs, it has been an honour. 2025 games: This year's upcoming releasesBest PC games: Our all-time favoritesFree PC games: Freebie festBest FPS games: Finest gunplayBest RPGs: Grand adventuresBest co-op games: Better together
