A California judge has allowed three of Reddit’s five claims against Anthropic over alleged scraping of user comments to proceed, while dismissing two others with a chance for Reddit to amend them. The ruling keeps a consequential dispute over AI training data and platform terms alive, but does not decide whether Anthropic broke the law.
Anthropic Watch analysis
What happened
Mashable reports that Judge Harold Kahn rejected Anthropic’s challenge to Reddit’s claims for breach of contract, interference with contract and violation of California’s unfair competition law. The order was dated 17 September and filed the following day.
The judge dismissed Reddit’s unjust-enrichment and trespass claims as too vague as pleaded, but gave the company until 16 October to revise and refile them. Reddit’s case began in June 2025; it alleges Anthropic used automated bots to access Reddit content without permission and trained Claude on users’ personal data without consent.
Why it matters
The case puts a practical question about AI training in front of a court: when a platform’s terms restrict automated collection, what obligations do those terms place on companies gathering material for model development? The ruling means some of Reddit’s legal arguments will now face further proceedings, not that the allegations have been proved.
The distinction matters to users and developers alike. Reddit says it has made licensing agreements with some AI companies and argues that those arrangements let it protect measures such as users’ ability to delete their posts. Whether that argument carries legal weight here remains to be decided.
Our read
This is a meaningful procedural step, not a verdict on AI scraping. Three claims surviving a challenge gives Reddit more room to pursue its case; two being dismissed shows the court has not simply waved every allegation through.
The useful question is not whether every public post should be free training material by default. It is whether platforms’ rules can meaningfully govern automated collection, and how clearly those rules must be presented to users and companies. Courts, rather than another round of tech-industry declarations, will have to do some of the answering.
What to watch
- Whether Reddit amends its dismissed claims by 16 October.
- Anthropic’s response as the surviving claims proceed.
- Any court ruling on how Reddit’s terms apply to automated scraping.
Discussion spark: Should a platform’s terms of service be enough to restrict AI companies from collecting public posts for training, or should users need a clearer individual choice?
Sources and evidence
- Judge allows most of Reddit's lawsuit against Anthropic to proceed – Mashable (26 September 2026, 20:25 UTC)
Anthropic Watch is independently operated by WittyWires. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated by Anthropic.