I had hoped to be done with the Anthropic settlement postings. After all, last Friday we’d be getting a list of books that are in agreement for which we’ll get paid starting November 23. And a list of books that still have to go through the continuous torture chamber that is known as the settlement process.
But no. Even in a simple effort such as “here’s a list of books that are agreement and you don’t have to do anything if you agree,” there’s confusion. And that confusion is solely because of the convoluted wording of messages from the settlement administration—not to mention paranoia about systems that seem to have a life of their own.
It all appears simple. The email states if we agree with the agreed on books, do nothing. But look at what it actually says:
If you disagree with the allocation for any Work scheduled for payment, you must dispute the payment by November 20, 2026. The Work will then be removed from this distribution. You can only submit your disputes once, so please review all Works before completing the form.
If you agree with the payment allocations, no action is needed. Your payment will be sent as scheduled unless another rightsholder disputes a Work.
So much emphasis on the disagreement, with faded-in notes about agreement, leading one to believe you have to do something in order to get paid.
And then the pages that follow. First a warning about needing to do something before November 20th, but that only applies if you disagree with the agreed on books. When you select the page listing agreed on books, the following at the top:
Payment Summary
Your Works scheduled for payment are listed below. If you agree with the allocations shown, no action is required. If you disagree with the allocation for any copyright number, check the box to identify a Dispute, then click “Next.”
The thing is, all of our past interactions with the same systems with the exact same display REQUIRED us to click that next button and then click the submit.
Sure the instruction states “no action is required”, but then there’s that damn Next button at the bottom.
What happened next is panicked postings in Bluesky from some authors, telling everyone that they HAVE to click the Next button and the Submit in order to get paid. To support their warnings, they show the confirmation web page they’ve received and email message confirming their choices.
Now, once they do click through and submit, when they access the page again, it shows the following (kindly sent to me by an author who did click through):
Again, you would expect this. Why? Because the email notes that you can only submit the form for the agreed on books once. You won’t be allowed to access the page and submit again. This is true whether you agreed with the listed books or marked any or all in dispute.
Yes, payments are processing. Yes, you submitted that form. No, you can’t access the page and submit it again.
Those of us who have not submitted the form and done nothing will still get the original book listing…because we have not submitted the form and, instead, have done nothing. But, the payments are still processing. Why? Because that’s the next step in the payment process: processing the payments.
As for the books still in disagreement, one of mine was in agreement and moved to disagreement SOLELY because of name confusion. In another, one person’s name is spelled four different ways. I suspect these will have to go to the Special Master, who will then exclaim, “What the hell?”
None of this should have happened. A little design savvy, the services of a usability expert, and even asking a few authors to help with the system design could have prevented so many of these problems. This is basic 101 web application design stuff.
I emailed the CEO of the settlement administrator warning her about the confusion. I also told her that perhaps she should use Claude to help straighten out the disagreements based on different name spellings. I guess we’ll see if it makes any difference.