Judge allows copyright lawsuit over Meta's use of pirated adult films for AI training
A federal judge has ruled that adult entertainment companies Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media can proceed with a copyright infringement lawsuit against Meta, which is accused of downloading over 2,300 pirated adult films via BitTorrent between 2018 and 2025 to train its AI systems. The judge found the companies had plausibly alleged direct, vicarious, and contributory copyright infringement based on evidence of automated downloads from Meta's corporate IP addresses. The case can now advance to litigation, with the plaintiffs seeking up to $359 million in damages.
What happened
Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media filed a lawsuit in July 2025 alleging that between 2018 and 2025, Meta downloaded more than 2,300 copyrighted adult films via BitTorrent to train its AI models.
On June 11, 2026, U.S. District Judge Eumi K. Lee denied Meta's motion to dismiss, ruling that the plaintiffs 'have plausibly alleged that [Meta] is liable for direct, vicarious, and contributory copyright infringement based on the torrenting of their films.'
The lawsuit alleges that 47 Meta IP addresses traced to the company's corporate offices conducted the downloads in patterns that 'consistently' showed 'non-human' behavior involving 'mass infringement beyond what a human could consume.'
Reported impact
Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media are seeking damages of up to $359 million.
The ruling allows the copyright infringement case to proceed to litigation.
Index analysis
The lawsuit emerged after unsealed documents from a separate legal action revealed Meta had extracted more than 81 terabytes of content from Anna's Archive, a repository of pirated media including books, television, films and adult material.
Judge Lee noted that the download patterns—including IP addresses torrenting similar files with identical names all in one day—made it implausible that the activity represented coincidence or individual human selections.
Governance controls
Meta argued in its motion to dismiss that the downloads were for 'personal use' and that the claims were 'nonsensical and unsupported,' but the court rejected this defense.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.