Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg are facing a class action lawsuit from five major book publishers and author Scott Turow, alleging copyright infringement in the training of its Llama generative AI platform. The plaintiffs include Hachette, Macmillan, McGraw Hill, Elsevier, and Cengage.
The lawsuit claims that the defendants reproduced and distributed millions of copyrighted works without permission and without compensation to authors or publishers. The complaint states, “Zuckerberg himself personally authorized and actively encouraged the infringement.”
Meta has previously faced multiple lawsuits regarding the materials used to train Llama. A separate lawsuit by a different group of authors in 2023 was unsuccessful. Zuckerberg’s alleged role in encouraging the use of copyrighted materials was highlighted in a case brought by LibGen, while a UK group of authors raised copyright concerns last year, although that matter has not reached court.
In a related case against Anthropic, a judge did not support the copyright infringement claim but suggested that piracy could offer an alternative avenue for authors seeking damages from AI companies. In response to the current class action, Meta representative Dave Arnold stated, “AI is powering transformative innovations, productivity and creativity for individuals and companies, and courts have rightly found that training AI on copyrighted material can qualify as fair use,” referencing the lack of successful legal precedent for copyright infringement claims in this context.
