Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg are facing a class action lawsuit filed by five book publishers and best-selling 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 compensating the authors or publishers, thereby violating copyright law. The complaint states, “Zuckerberg himself personally authorized and actively encouraged the infringement.”
Meta has faced multiple lawsuits related to its use of copyrighted materials for Llama. A previous copyright infringement lawsuit by a different group of authors in 2023 was unsuccessful. The allegations of Zuckerberg encouraging the use of copyrighted works were highlighted in a case brought by LibGen.
Additionally, a group of authors in the UK raised concerns last year about potential copyright violations by Meta, although that case has not yet been litigated. In a separate lawsuit against Anthropic, a judge dismissed the copyright infringement claim, but mentioned piracy as a potential means for authors to seek damages.
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,” emphasizing the current lack of strong court support for copyright infringement claims.
