Adobe sued for using pirated books to train SlimLM AI model
A proposed class-action lawsuit claims Adobe used pirated books from the Books3 dataset to train its SlimLM AI model without the authors' consent or compensation. The case is part of growing copyright litigation against tech companies over unauthorized use of copyrighted material in AI training datasets.
What happened
A proposed class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of Elizabeth Lyon, an author from Oregon, claims Adobe used pirated books to train its SlimLM model.
The lawsuit alleges that copyrighted works were included in the SlimPajama-627B dataset, which Adobe used for pretraining SlimLM. SlimPajama was created by copying and manipulating the RedPajama dataset, which contains Books3, a collection of 191,000 books.
Reported impact
Lyon and other authors claim their copyrighted works were used without consent, credit, or compensation to train Adobe's AI model.
Index analysis
The lawsuit is part of an emerging trend of copyright litigation against tech companies over AI training datasets, with similar cases filed against Apple and Salesforce involving the same RedPajama dataset.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.