Reddit has filed a lawsuit against artificial intelligence company Anthropic, accusing it of scraping and using the platform’s data to train its AI chatbot, Claude, without a licensing agreement or compensation.
The complaint, filed in a Northern California court, alleges breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and trespass to chattels, among other claims.
According to the legal filing, Anthropic—a public benefit corporation founded by former OpenAI employees—trained Claude on Reddit content as early as December 2021, despite Reddit’s user agreement prohibiting commercial exploitation without permission. The lawsuit cites internal research by Anthropic’s team, including CEO Dario Amodei, which identified Reddit comments as “high-quality data” for fine-tuning AI models.
Reddit claims Anthropic ignored its robots.txt directives—a standard protocol to block web scraping—and continued accessing the platform over 100,000 times after publicly claiming it had stopped. The social media giant also alleges that Anthropic’s refusal to enter licensing talks, unlike competitors OpenAI and Google, deprived Reddit of revenue and violated user privacy protections.
“We will not tolerate profit-seeking entities like Anthropic commercially exploiting Reddit content for billions of dollars without any return for creditors or respect for their privacy,” said Ben Lee, Reddit’s chief legal officer, in a statement to TechCrunch.
The lawsuit highlights concerns over AI companies leveraging publicly available data without accountability. Reddit’s licensing agreements with other firms include safeguards like API-based deletion protocols for user-removed content—a feature Anthropic allegedly bypassed.
Anthropic has not publicly responded to the allegations. Reddit seeks compensatory damages, restitution, and an injunction to halt further use of its data.
This case joins a growing list of legal challenges against AI firms, including lawsuits by The New York Times and authors over unauthorized data use. The outcome could set a precedent for how AI companies access and monetise publicly available online content.