Photo Credit: Planet Volumes
A federal judge has flatly denied veteran music industry attorney Donald Passman’s request to opt out of Anthropic’s settlement with authors. Unfortunately, that seemingly means a modest once-off payment will enable the Claude developer to lawfully “train” on multiple editions of All You Need to Know About the Music Business.
Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín addressed Passman’s urgent request (and other late opt-outs as well as general objections) in a new order approving the $1.5 billion settlement.
As many are aware, less a pile of legal fees and some adjacent expenses, that settlement will reach authors whose books Anthropic allegedly pirated to train Claude. These authors had until early February to back out of the settlement if so inclined, thereby forgoing payment but reserving the right to seek relief on their own.
Passman, we broke down earlier in July, didn’t submit his opt-out notice by the deadline and instead moved to withdraw via late-June filings. Unsurprisingly, Anthropic opposed the ask (and the prospect of facing additional litigation from a well-known author).
Now, Judge Martínez-Olguín has determined that Passman, whose above-noted music industry bible appears to have four editions in the relevant training dataset, made “no showing of excusable neglect as to why” the “untimely” request should be honored.
We previously explored the apparent lack of notification to Passman from his longtime publisher, Simon & Schuster – and touched on the possibility that Anthropic didn’t want high-profile authors to discover the settlement until after the deadline.
While comments from Passman may eventually provide clarity here – the Gang Tyre partner didn’t immediately respond to a comment request – Judge Martínez-Olguín indicated that Passman had been notified several times.
“As to Passman’s recently filed opt-out request,” the judge wrote, “the Court does not find excusable neglect because the settlement administrator declares that she mailed Passman a long form notice and buck slip on December 1, 2025, a reminder postcard notice on March 9, 2026, and a non-filing claimant notice on April 29, 2026, to Passman’s known address.”
Additionally, “[n]one of these mailings were returned as undeliverable,” at least one was stamped “received,” and Passman in April “reached out to his publisher asking about the settlement,” per the order.
Consequently, “because permitting an opt-out request submitted months after the opt-out deadline will undermine the finality of the settlement, the Court does not find that Passman has shown excusable neglect for waiting until June 30, 2026, to file an opt-out request,” Judge Martínez-Olguín finished.
Time will tell whether Passman takes different steps to challenge the settlement inclusion. Meanwhile, it seems safe to assume that the episode probably won’t improve the author-publisher relationship at hand.
That’s important generally and because the 11th edition of All You Need to Know About the Music Business is nearly three years old. At least based on prior release timetables – albeit with no concrete date attached to the 12th edition at present – we’re presumably due to receive an updated version in the not-so-distant future.