Judge rejects Meta’s claim that torrenting is 'irrelevant' in AI copyright case
Now that Meta has largely beaten an AI training copyright lawsuit raised by 13 book authors—including comedian Sarah Silverman and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Diaz—the only matter left to settle in that case is whether Meta violated copyright laws by torrenting books used to train Llama models.
In an order that partly grants Meta’s motion for summary judgment, judge Vince Chhabria confirmed that Meta and the authors would meet on July 11 to “discuss how to proceed on the plaintiffs’ separate claim that Meta unlawfully distributed their protected works during the torrenting process.”
Chhabria’s order suggested that authors may struggle to win this part of the fight, too, due to a lack of evidence, as there has not yet been much discovery on this issue that was raised so late in the case. But he also warned that Meta was wrong to argue its torrenting was completely “irrelevant” to whether its copying of books was fair use.
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