Publishers Sue Meta Over Unauthorized Use of Copyrighted Works for AI Training
Five major book publishers and an author sued Meta Platforms in Manhattan federal court for allegedly using millions of copyrighted works without permission to train its Llama AI system. The plaintiffs seek class-action approval and damages; Meta denies wrongdoing and maintains it used data lawfully for AI development.
What happened
Five major publishers—Elsevier, Cengage, Hachette, Macmillan, and McGraw Hill—and author Scott Turow filed suit against Meta Platforms in federal court in Manhattan. The plaintiffs accused Meta of using millions of copyrighted works, including textbooks, scientific articles, and novels such as 'The Fifth Season' by N.K. Jemisin and 'The Wild Robot' by Peter Brown, without permission to train the Llama large language model.
The plaintiffs claimed Meta pirated these works to develop the AI system's capacity to generate responses to user queries. Meta denied the allegations and stated it would contest the claims in court, arguing that AI development involves the legitimate use of data.
Reported impact
The plaintiffs sought court approval for a class action lawsuit to include other copyright holders affected by the alleged unauthorized use, though the sought damages amount was not specified.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.