Tag: indie author

Over the last little bit I have hemmed and hawed and nearly thrown a few things over my Anthropic Claim. You’d think getting around $6,000 out of this debacle would make me jump for joy but…I got problems here.

Let’s retrace our steps for a second. Back in September I learned that at least 4 of my books had been stolen by Anthropic. I knew they’d been pirated and I’d lost out on a nice chunk of change over the years but here was proof that some Fat Cat with no scruples had done the same thing and trained his friggin’ AI with it. Read all about the first part of our journey in Meta, AI & the Indie Author if you haven’t already.

At that exact time I really had no idea I was about to become part of the Class Action Lawsuit against Anthropic and it’s Ass Hat at the helm.

BUT in early December I got my notifications in the mail letting me know that I was officially a part of this thing. You can read about that in How I discovered My Stolen Books and Found $12,000.

At that time, there were at least 4 books (by my count it should be 5). Ok, so at $3,000/each that a nice $12,000. BTW, that’s 12k that I earned and was stolen from me. This is NOT “free money”.

I went to file my claim. Oh joy! You can read about that part of our journey in Facing the Challenges of Stolen Works & Rights. This lawsuit, somehow, had my 4 books whittled down to 2…actually 3 because they’ve made a mistake with an authorized ‘compilation’ that I tried my best to straighten out. I really did because it off so much. Yes, someone without my consent combined two of my novels into one doubly illegal download.

The people running this thing have assured me:

Dear Lisa,

Each line in the Works List represents one claimable work and that work is ultimately identified by the copyright registration number. The copyright registration number TXU001771989 is associated with Child of War – A God is Born, therefore Child of War – A God is Born is the relevant claimable work. The title Child Of War – Rising Sun was mistakenly included in Identified column of the Works List and the ISBN column.

The underlying datasets Anthropic downloaded originated from pirated websites and may contain imperfect or incomplete metadata. The lookup tool reflects, as faithfully as possible, the records we received from sources such as Anthropic and the U.S. Copyright Office.

You have two works that are part of the Settlement Class, Child of War – A God is Born and The Heart of War. When submitting your claim, please use the correct ISBN for Child of War – A God is Born. Please note that if a book does not appear on the Works List, it is not part of the settlement class, so you do not release any rights to pursue claims against Anthropic regarding that title.

1-It was not ‘mistakenly included’ you’ve already admitted this is a ‘compilation’ under your guidelines
2-They couldn’t even spell the title correctly…SON, moron, SON
3-For fuck’s sake the title in question is literally RIGHT THERE under the heading “Identified Title”
4-They are unable to correct their own errors because
5-They are unable to admit they screwed up
6-If that shoddy work qualifies as ‘faithfully as possible’….darlin’ you need to go to church way more often find out what that word actually means. But you will notice it DOES NOT SAY ‘as diligently as possible’.

Gee, I wonder why?

I hate lawyers Scum of the Earth.

But as you can see I’ve kept this email for future reference and evidence should the need arise. And it probably will. I have every bit of communication between myself and

Especially the ones that contradict each other. They’re always so handy to keep around.

So they whittled my 4 books down to 2…on their own without regard for much of anything.

What should be $12,000 has turned into $6,000. I think in one of those posts I mentioned that, with my law experience, this would probably happen when I saw the original database.

It took me at least two weeks to calm down and sell myself the old BS line that ‘at least it’s something’. Because, at heart, I really am an All or Nothing kind of gal. Do it right or don’t fucking do it at all, especially if you’re a law firm being highly paid to do a NOT shit job!

I took the plunge and filed my claim for the two books this morning.

I may have to split it with my “publisher”…you know…with me. That will be fun. I tried to get them to understand that Moon Mistress Publishing only exists in the digital world, it’s just an imprint name, it’s just ME there’s no LLC or any of that shit. There WAS long ago and far away but I got sick of filing quarterly taxes that kept reading “0” and became nothing more than a waste of my time so I closed that legally opened LLC. I asked for Direct Deposit so maybe getting half what I’m owed won’t be a massive problem.

We’ll see.

And yeah, 6 grand! I know! It’s a nice chunk of change. I should be happy about this and yet I feel like I’m standing at the Cross Road and

Just appeared before me with a Sweet Deal. Hey! He WAS a “moderately successful literary agent” after all. Well, that particular meatsuit was anyway.

So, I got Crowley on one side and nothing on the other.

If I die in ten years………..