Authors believe that Meta’s acknowledged use of a data set containing pirated books to train its AI models provides sufficient evidence to win their ongoing copyright lawsuit. This case previously rested on a court ruling that AI training on copyrighted works does not constitute fair use.
In a filing for summary judgment on a direct copyright infringement claim in a US district court in California, the authors asserted that, regardless of the merits of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), the act of stealing copyrighted works from the internet for personal benefit has always been unlawful. The authors’ claims include allegations that Meta torrented terabytes of pirated book data after attempts to download individual books proved too slow. They assert that Meta knew this activity has been considered infringing for over two decades.
To allegedly conceal its actions, the social media company reportedly deviated from normal procedures and used Amazon Web Services. The authors allege that Meta engaged in “leeching” during the download process, in which other users could download parts of files before the download was complete, suggesting Meta shared pirated books with others.
The authors argue that the company should not be held to different standards than other entities for illegal conduct. They have mocked what they call Meta’s “Bob Dylan defense” of its torrenting, referencing lyrics from “Sweetheart Like You” that touch upon theft. Meta opposes requests for leeching evidence and does not want the court to consider these claims.
Last week, Meta claimed that the authors should not be allowed to pursue further discovery on the company’s alleged leeching or introduce a new expert to discuss the leeching’s potential impact on the case. Meta is arguing that the authors’ motion for summary judgment is inappropriate because Meta has not had the opportunity to defend against these claims. Judge Vince Chhabria is scheduled to weigh these arguments on May 1. The judge recently expressed that he would consider whether it would be unfair to Meta to rule on the summary judgment at this stage.
The authors, however, think that torrenting pirated works is so illegal that they now have an “open-and-shut case” of copyright infringement. They specifically cite a key court ruling against Napster and insist that “Meta infringed each of their copyrights, full stop.” Chhabria admitted last month that he was unfamiliar with the term “leeching.” The authors seek compensation from Meta after they turned down offers to license the data for a fee. They state that the value Meta placed on the copyrighted works should mean authors, who were paid nothing, should be recognized appropriately.
To bolster their case, the authors are asking for additional discovery, including written answers from Meta about the torrenting and leeching and depositions from Meta employees. They claim that it is beyond dispute that Meta knew the risks of acquiring copyrighted works from pirated databases and that Meta’s actions warrant financial consequences. The documents state that the gamble should not pay off.
Meta has stated that the new discovery requests are “unnecessary, unwarranted, and infeasible.” The company agreed to allow depositions from six employees, including software engineer Nikolay Bashlykov, who sent an internal message stating that “Torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn’t feel right.” Meta also states that the authors have not justified additional deposition time with Mark Zuckerberg. The authors also claim the expert Meta retained failed to replicate the company’s torrenting in her analysis, leaving it unclear “how much data Meta uploaded and/or seeded.” Meta’s expert also allegedly ignored that “BitTorrent’s default configuration provides for continuous uploading during the ‘leeching’ phase—simultaneous to downloading.” The authors maintain that, since Meta hasn’t found a single case where a court determined downloading or uploading pirated works on P2P networks is fair use, “The use of piracy to further piracy can never be ‘fair use.'”
