A right to payment from a class action settlement is a property right that can generally be sold. The Bartz v. Anthropic case is no exception.
Yes you most certainly can. A Google search will probably tell you that class action claims can't be sold and that many settlement agreements have anti-assignment language, but none of this applies to the Bartz v. Anthropic settlement. No "anti-assignment" clause exists and claimants are free to assign their claims to third parties for up front payment. A right to payment from a class action settlement is property, and property that isn't expressly restricted can be sold like any other asset. In fact, Turnpage has already purchased Anthropic settlement claims from authors. In each sale the assignment and payment direction are recorded with the Settlement Administrator, so the settlement pays the buyer instead of the seller on the works sold. Certain states do have restrictions about buying legal settlements without certain licensing and we do not operate in those jurisdictions. Other states bar pre-settlement sales, but the settlement has been finalized here.
Some online searches will caution authors and publishers to steer clear from third party claim buyers. These advisories generally trace back to a company called ClaimsHero which was described as "a fraud of immense proportions" by the Bartz court. ClaimsHero allegedly pressured authors to opt out of the settlement entirely before the March 30, 2026 filing deadline on the promise of a bigger potential payout based on filing a separate, speculative lawsuit. ClaimsHero hoped to capture a share of recoveries from that larger potential payout and allegedly misled customers into believing they were guaranteed to get more than under the settlement. In part, due to these activities, the Bartz v. Anthropic court permitted claimants that had opted out to opt back in to the class for a short period of time.
Selling a filed claim to an independent buyer is exactly the opposite of the scheme that ClaimsHero allegedly ran. Instead of giving up their claim in exchange for an even more speculative asset, the claimholder sells their rights to payment for a less speculative asset —namely cash, paid today.
In a sale, the buyer simply pays a fixed amount to the claim holder now in exchange for all of their rights under the settlement and collects from the settlement fund directly when it ultimately pays out. While the cash value may be less than the expected recovery, the discount in a claim sale is generally justified by the duration risk and other factors that could impact recoveries. If the fund pays late — because of the appeals, a disputed ownership share, or anything else — or pays less than projected, that is the buyer's loss. The buyer absorbs these risks as part of the trade.
So why might authors consider selling their claims? Mostly to be paid sooner and to hand the risk to someone else. As of September 15, 2026, the position is this: the two notices of appeal filed in August (Dkt. 682 on August 18 and Dkt. 683 on August 19) concern the attorneys' fees rather than the settlement itself, and the Settlement Agreement says an appeal taken solely as to the Fee Award does not delay the Effective Date. In a status report filed on September 2, 2026 (Dkt. 688), class counsel told the court that first payments are expected to be sent on or before November 15, 2026. That expectation is not a guarantee: an objector's request to appeal the settlement itself or to join the appeals (Dkt. 687, August 31) has not been ruled on, and if it is granted the Effective Date and every distribution keyed to it could be postponed indefinitely. The fund is also not complete until Anthropic's final $450 million installment, due by September 25, 2027, so payment arrives in stages — and a work whose ownership share is disputed can wait longer, until the Special Master resolves it. Some claimants have current cash needs and would rather have a fixed amount now. Estates and trusts that are rights holders may need to convert assets to cash to close accounts. Authors might just want to put this whole litigation behind them and move on.
The path to liquidity is real, proven and established. Thousands of claims trade in other class action cases (like the NCAA College Athlete Compensation class action and the Visa/Master Card Interchange Fee class action) and this one is no different.
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Bartz, Anthropic, Claims Trading