Interesting excerpt:
> “We will have a trial on the pirated copies used to create Anthropic’s central library and the resulting damages,” Judge Alsup wrote in the decision. “That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for theft but it may affect the extent of statutory damages.”
Language of “pirated” and “theft” are from the article. If they did realize a mistake and purchased copies after the fact, why should that be insufficient?
As just a matter of society, I don't think you want people say stealing a car and then coming back a month later with the money.
Copyright infringement does not deprive the copyright owner of its property and is not criminal. So in this case only the lawsuit part applies. The owner is only entitled to the monetary damages, which is the lost sale. But in this case the sale price was paid to the owner 1 month later, so the only real damages will be the interest the publisher could have earned if they had got their money one month earlier.