Judge Allows Authors' AI Copyright Case Against Meta to Proceed
Meta's AI training practices are set to undergo legal scrutiny as a judge has given the green light for a copyright infringement case against the company to move forward. The lawsuit, filed by authors Richard Kadrey and Christopher Golden, alongside comedian Sarah Silverman in July 2023, alleges that Meta utilized content from their copyrighted books to train its Llama AI model.
Subsequently, more authors, including Ta-Nehisi Coates, joined the case in the following months.
The plaintiffs claim that certain responses generated by Llama were extracted directly from their work without authorization, ultimately benefiting Meta.
Furthermore, they argue that Meta deliberately removed copyright management information (CMI), such as ISBNs, copyright symbols, and disclaimers, to conceal their infringement. Despite Meta's attempts to have the case dismissed, as reported by TechCrunch, these efforts were unsuccessful.
Judge's Ruling
In a ruling issued by Judge Vince Chhabria, he permitted the case to progress, emphasizing the significance of copyright infringement as a tangible injury that warrants legal standing.
Additionally, the judge indicated a plausible inference that Meta expunged CMI to prevent Llama from producing CMI and thereby disclosing its training on copyrighted material.
However, Judge Chhabria did dismiss one of the plaintiffs' claims under the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (CDAFA), as the authors failed to allege that Meta accessed their systems, only their data.
Industry Landscape
This judgment arrives shortly after Thomson Reuters achieved a significant victory in an AI copyright lawsuit, with a judge rejecting Ross Intelligence's fair use argument due to its impact on the market value of Thomson Reuters' copyrighted content. Meta is not alone in facing legal challenges related to copyright violations within the AI sector.
Various AI companies, including OpenAI, Microsoft, Perplexity AI, and OpenAI (sued by Canadian news organizations), are embroiled in similar lawsuits. The New York Times, for instance, has taken legal action against OpenAI and Microsoft, while News Corp. has filed a lawsuit against Perplexity AI.
