this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
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In order to help train its AI models, Meta (and others) have been using pirated versions of copyrighted books, without the consent of authors or publishers. The company behind Facebook and Instagram faces an ongoing class-action lawsuit brought by authors including Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, and Christopher Golden, and one in which it has already scored a major (and surprising) victory: The Californian court concluded last year that using pirated books to train its Llama LLM did qualify as fair use.

You'd think this case would be as open-and-shut as it gets, but never underestimate an army of high-priced lawyers. Meta has now come up with the striking defense that uploading pirated books to strangers via BitTorrent qualifies as fair use. It further goes on to claim that this is double good, because it has helped establish the United States' leading position in the AI field.

Meta further argues that every author involved in the class-action has admitted they are unaware of any Llama LLM output that directly reproduces content from their books. It says if the authors cannot provide evidence of such infringing output or damage to sales, then this lawsuit is not about protecting their books but arguing against the training process itself (which the court has ruled is fair use).

Judge Vince Chhabria now has to decide whether to allow this defense, a decision that will have consequences for not only this but many other AI lawsuits involving things like shadow libraries. The BitTorrent uploading and distribution claims are the last element of this particular lawsuit, which has been rumbling on for three years now, to be settled.

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[–] whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

Copyrights over 5-10 years or not held by the creator are stealing from the commons/public domain and there is no moral obligation to follow those laws, and some would say a moral responsibility to share pirated copies of those works to everyone, not just corpo slop machines. Also good luck proving leading AI is a good thing and not destroying education and critical thinking skills.

[–] Paranoidfactoid@lemmy.world 86 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So meta gets to claim fair use with pure digital duplication, but archive.org doesn't when they scan physical copies of books and only lend out the same number of copies as they own in warehouses. That's piracy.

Got it.

[–] Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 31 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Rules for thee but not for me ahhhh corpo shit.

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[–] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 204 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (24 children)
  1. Shorter and more reasonable copyright lengths would make this a moot point because then there would sufficient literature in the public domain to pull from.

  2. These kind of charges are what put the Pirate Bay admins in prison and caused Aaron Swartz to kill himself because of a threat of lifetime in prison. The claim that they did this either with the goal of profit or actually successful profit and that this was a serious crime. Neither TPB or Swartz at that point in time had ever moved as much data as Meta has for these claims, nor did they ever have the profit or possibility of profit Meta aims to make from their AI offerings.

  3. Now Meta is claiming they've profited so hard you can't possibly hold them accountable.

It will be the biggest "fuck you" in history to anyone ever hit with civil charges for piracy in the early 2000s, let alone the TPB admins and Swartz, if they let this go. Which means they probably will because in America, apparently if you crime hard enough and big enough they stop putting you in prison and start patting you on the back and calling it good business sense.

[–] Captainautism@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 hours ago

These kind of charges are what put the Pirate Bay admins in prison and caused Aaron Swartz to kill himself because of a threat of lifetime in prison.

Um, he did not kill himself

[–] Airfried@piefed.social 51 points 2 days ago (1 children)

in America, apparently if you crime hard enough and big enough they stop putting you in prison and start patting you on the back and calling it good business sense.

There's a story about Alexander the great capturing a pirate and scolding him for raiding villages along the coast line. Alexander asked if the pirate feels ashamed and wants to beg for forgiveness. However, the pirate had something else to say. He said that Alexander was doing the same thing, but infinitely worse. The only difference was that Alexander called himself king and plundered entire lands while the pirate only raided small villages. The pirate reminded Alexander of the many lives he had destroyed in his conquest. So the pirate's only crime was not to be the biggest baddie in the hood, so to speak.

Alexander replied by stating that the title of king forces his hand and that he couldn't just stop what he was doing. The pirate on the other hand was just an individual who could easily change course. And so Alexander set the pirate free, stating that he himself will start changing his own ways right there and then if the pirate makes a fresh start first.

I don't know if there is any truth to this but it's a fable often used to explain how legitimacy changes the perception people have of wrong doing and heroism on a fundamental level. Alexander's reply sounds like an excuse and I think that's on purpose. The pirate outwitted him in the end by stating a basic truth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQBWGo7pef8

This is where I first remember hearing this tale, in this old Schoolhouse Rock parody that was in protest of the War in Iraq.

[–] artifex@piefed.social 37 points 2 days ago

in America, apparently if you crime hard enough and big enough they stop putting you in prison and start patting you on the back and calling it good business sense.

If you owe the bank $100 you have a problem. If you owe the bank $100,000,000, the bank has a problem.

[–] discocactus@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If heaven and hell are real I hope God and Satan give Swartz a sabbatical so he can go torture Zuck for a while, periodically.

[–] mghackerlady@leminal.space 1 points 17 hours ago

I like the implication that both have to sign off on it

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 101 points 2 days ago (5 children)

So I can use pirated media to train my AI (Actual Intelligence), right?

[–] artifex@piefed.social 50 points 2 days ago (1 children)

As long as you’re rich enough to hire your own army of lawyers, probably.

That said, it seems like when you’re rich enough to hire your own army of lawyers you can pretty much do whatever you want.

[–] Kailn@lemmy.myserv.one 6 points 2 days ago

Well, that doesn't sound civil or lawful at all and more like kindoms of the dark ages degree of "rules" where it doesn't apply to a choosen few.

If Meta and other bigcorps that support the US goverment get the special "avoid-judgment" card and you face punishment then there's no law, only bigotry.

That would encourage individuals and small groups to keep their activites a secret (go anonymous) and break the law whenever they can,
because the "king and his followers" don't follow their own "rules".

The US is not only getting dystopian, they're commiting primitive mistakes.

[–] tehn00bi@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago

Should make all journal publications fair use.

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[–] Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 85 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I absolutely love the fact that all these companies are laying the legal groundwork to destroy intellectual property rights altogether. If they win enough of these cases, then every pirate on the open seas sails under a flag of amnesty.

[–] artifex@piefed.social 87 points 2 days ago (2 children)

No, I expect they’ll be more like “rules for thee but not for me”

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[–] jabjoe@feddit.uk 11 points 2 days ago

Not all IP is self surviving. Even CopyRight isn't always a bad thing, if you think of small artists, for example. My fear is about CopyLeft mainly as I feel it's been incredible successful in pushing forwards openness. The megacorps hating it, tells you it is doing its job. Only of the things they love about LLM and code is it can license wash away CopyLeft.

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[–] Etterra@discuss.online 21 points 2 days ago (3 children)

So when this works for them it'll be precedent to allow the fair use pirating of all media and software, right?

Oh never mind, I forgot that I don't have billions of dollars to spend on lawyers. Never mind.

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[–] andybytes@programming.dev 11 points 1 day ago

So we subsidize these baby killing bastards and they pull the broke boy card. The united state is a brutal imperialist capitalist shithole ...pffft fuck capitalism

[–] Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com 48 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Classic "the end justifies the means" (bad) defense. If ISPs can send letter for torrenting, and Facebook torrented a lot, Facebook deserves a fair punishment.

[–] GameOverFlow@lemmy.zip 24 points 2 days ago

Not deserves, needs.

[–] Archer@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago

lol it would be hilarious if they could order Facebook disconnected from the Internet like a pleb hit with a copyright complaint

[–] Willoughby@piefed.world 8 points 2 days ago

truck full of letters backs up to Meta's headquarters

"there, that's more appropriate."

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Honestly I agree with Meta here but this should apply to everyone. I think most people here conflate their hate for Meta with the factual reality of intellectual property.

[–] SpaceMan9000@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I can hate both.

People can also hate the fact that if you have enough money you can make everything legal.

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[–] TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 25 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

So we can pirate books as well as long as we aren't able to reproduce them verbatim from memory as well?

Judge Vince Chhabria either accepts whatever bribes and offers he's probably getting offered and sides with Meta, or it will eventually go on to the Supreme Court where they most definitely will. That's the part of this that will work the most under an administration of no accountability.

[–] InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago

Tell the judge you are training a neural network... it just happens to also be you.

[–] melfie@lemy.lol 18 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Looking forward to Jellyfin getting a LLM to train locally on movie preferences so everyone’s library is fair use. Wait, is this why LLMs are being shoehorned into everything? 🤔

[–] AffineConnection@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

It's OK when corporations do it.

[–] captcha_incorrect@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

So Anna's Archive is legal now?

[–] Luminous5481@anarchist.nexus 14 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yup, that's what I'm doing with all those audiobooks I torrented. Helping the US maintain the lead in AI 😂

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[–] daggermoon@piefed.world 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Is it fair use if I do it?

[–] artifex@piefed.social 11 points 2 days ago (3 children)
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