Meta wins AI copyright lawsuit; judge warns on fair use.

Meta has won a significant legal victory in an AI copyright lawsuit brought by 13 authors who claimed the company illegally used their copyrighted books to train its AI systems without permission. The lawsuit, filed in California federal court, centered on Meta’s use of LibGen, a shadow library known for hosting pirated content, to feed its large language models (LLMs), including Llama. On Wednesday, Judge Vince Chhabria ruled in Meta’s favor, granting summary judgment based on its fair use defense. However, the judge emphasized that this ruling does not definitively establish Meta’s use of copyrighted materials as lawful; rather, it highlights the plaintiffs' failure to present a compelling case. Judge Chhabria noted two primary weaknesses in the authors' arguments. First, the court found that Llama's capability to generate text snippets from the plaintiffs’ books was not significant enough to constitute infringement. Second, the plaintiffs argued that Meta’s use of their works for training diluted their ability to license their content, but the judge ruled that they are not entitled to a specific market for licensing their works as AI training data. These two points were deemed insufficient to support the claims of copyright infringement. Additionally, Chhabria highlighted a potentially winning argument that the plaintiffs failed to develop: the possibility that AI tools could flood the market with similar works, causing market dilution. This argument, however, was barely mentioned in the case. Chhabria warned that AI-generated content could be produced much faster and with less creativity than human-created content, potentially undermining the incentive for humans to engage in creative endeavors. Despite this, the plaintiffs provided no concrete evidence to support this market harm. Boies Schiller Flexner, one of the law firms representing the authors, respectfully disagreed with the judge's ruling. The firm did not address Chhabria’s characterization of the arguments when contacted by Business Insider. Other law firms also represented the plaintiffs, but Meta did not respond to requests for comment. The Meta ruling comes on the heels of a similar victory for Anthropic, an AI startup. Just a day earlier, Judge William Alsup of the Northern District of California dismissed a lawsuit against Anthropic, ruling that the company’s use of copyrighted books to train its models was “excessively transformative” and thus fell under fair use. Alsup stated that Anthropic’s models were designed to learn from these works, not to replicate or compete with them, drawing a parallel to a reader aspiring to become a writer. Both rulings underscore the ongoing debate in the tech industry over the legality of training AI systems on copyrighted material. While creators argue that using their work without permission is a form of intellectual property theft, tech companies contend that such use is permissible under fair use. Fair use allows for certain transformative uses of copyrighted works without requiring explicit permission from the rights holders, provided that the new work serves a fundamentally different purpose. Recent months have seen a surge in lawsuits from various creators, including artists, filmmakers, authors, and news outlets, against major AI players like OpenAI. These cases highlight a broader tension between technological innovation and the protection of creators’ rights. Earlier this month, Disney sued AI image generator Midjourney, alleging that the company infringed on its intellectual property by using famous characters from franchises like "Star Wars" and "The Simpsons" in its AI training datasets. Industry insiders view these rulings as important precedents in the evolving landscape of AI and copyright law. While the outcomes suggest that courts may be willing to interpret fair use broadly in favor of tech companies, they also highlight the need for creators to build stronger cases and provide more concrete evidence of harm. These cases will likely continue to shape the legal framework governing AI training data, influencing how tech companies approach the issue moving forward. Meta, founded in 2004 and formerly known as Facebook, is a leading player in social media and technology. The company has been at the forefront of developing AI systems, particularly in natural language processing, to enhance user experiences and drive innovation. Anthropic, on the other hand, is a younger but rapidly growing AI startup known for creating advanced language models that can perform a variety of tasks, from writing to coding. Both companies are closely watched by the tech community, as their successes and legal battles reflect broader trends and challenges in the field of artificial intelligence.