News Reddit v Anthropic Remand 2026
Reddit, Inc. v. Anthropic PBC — On March 31, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted Reddit's motion to remand its lawsuit against Anthropic to California state court, rejecting Anthropic's argument that federal copyright law preempted Reddit's state-law claims.[1][2]
Reddit sued Anthropic alleging unauthorized scraping of its platform content since approximately 2022 to train Claude and other AI models, in violation of Reddit's user agreements and California law. Anthropic removed the case to federal court, arguing that Reddit's claims were preempted by the federal Copyright Act under 17 U.S.C. § 301.[3]
The court held that each of Reddit's claims — breach of contract, unjust enrichment, trespass to chattels, tortious interference with contract, and violations of the California Business and Professions Code — contained "extra elements" qualitatively different from copyright's exclusive rights. These extra elements include breaching user agreement restrictions on access methods, bypassing technical safeguards, and impairing infrastructure. Under the two-part § 301 preemption test, while Reddit's content falls within copyright's subject matter, the extra elements mean the rights are not equivalent.[1][2]
The remand means the case proceeds in California state court, where Reddit can pursue its claims without the overlay of federal copyright law. Anthropic may appeal the remand order, and may still raise fair use defenses in state court.[1]
Significance
This ruling is significant for AI litigation because it establishes that AI training data cases based on state-law theories (contract, tort, unfair competition) are not automatically preempted by federal copyright law. This allows plaintiffs to keep cases in state court and pursue broader remedies than copyright alone provides. It also means AI companies cannot automatically federalize scraping disputes by invoking copyright preemption.[1]