A US judge rules that Meta's use of books to train Llama is protected by fair use but says his opinion is more a reflection of the plaintiffs' poor arguments
Meta Platforms Inc. escaped a first-of-its-kind copyright lawsuit from a group of authors who alleged the tech giant hoovered …
Bloomberg Law Isaiah Poritz
Context & Ripple Effects
This ruling closes the immediate arc of Kadrey v. Meta, which was allowed to proceed in March after authors challenged Llama's training corpus. The case had been framed as an early major test of AI copyright claims over Llama training.
It arrives days after a separate ruling drew a distinction between fair-use training and retaining pirated books in a training library. That Anthropic decision's split treatment of training and storage makes the limits of this Meta outcome especially important.
First-order effects
- Meta avoids this authors' copyright suit over its use of books to train Llama, removing an immediate legal threat to that training practice.
- The plaintiffs' claims fail on the arguments and record presented; the judge explicitly characterized the result as reflecting weaknesses in their case rather than a broad endorsement of every AI-training practice.
Second-order effects
- Other AI developers can cite the result in training-data disputes, but claimants will face pressure to make more concrete, better-supported arguments about the alleged infringement and harm.
- The contrasting outcome in the Anthropic books ruling keeps the provenance and retention of copied material legally salient even where training itself is found to be fair use.
Third-order effects
- AI copyright litigation is likely to develop through fact-specific boundaries—training use, source acquisition, storage, and proof of harm—rather than a single blanket rule for all model training.
- If courts continue separating model training from the handling of underlying copies, AI firms' data-governance practices may become as consequential as their fair-use defenses.
The trend: Generative-AI copyright law is moving toward granular rulings on how training data is obtained, retained, and used rather than a simple yes-or-no answer on training itself.
Related: Content as Inference Input · Public-data permission boundary · Meta · Kadrey v. Meta begins major AI copyright test · Anthropic book-training fair-use ruling
Related Coverage
- Federal judge sides with Meta in lawsuit over training AI models on copyrighted books TechCrunch · Maxwell Zeff
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- Judge in ‘Kadrey v. Meta’ AI copyright case rules for Meta, against authors Mashable · Cecily Mauran
- Meta Wins Pivotal AI Copyright Case, Despite Judge Calling Its Claims ‘Nonsense’ eWeek · Fiona Jackson
- Meta wins AI copyright case filed by Sarah Silverman and other authors Engadget · Mariella Moon
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- Meta Wins AI Copyright Case, But Judge Writes Roadmap for Authors' Revenge Publishers Weekly · Ed Nawotka
- Kadrey v. Meta United States District Court, Northern District of California
- Meta wins AI copyright case, but judge says others could bring lawsuits CNBC · Jonathan Vanian
- Judge dismisses authors' copyright lawsuit against Meta over AI training Associated Press
- Meta's AI copyright win comes with a warning about fair use The Verge · Jay Peters
- Meta wins over Llama book training, but the judge warns future cases could go differently The Decoder · Matthias Bastian
- Meta AI Copyright Case: Judge Rules Training AI on Books is Fair Use, But Pirating Them Isn't WinBuzzer · Markus Kasanmascheff
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- Meta's transformative use defense tips scales in its favor in AI copyright legal battle Cryptopolitan · Nellius Irene
- Meta Wins in Court, but Judge Signals Future AI Copyright Battles Ahead implicator.ai · Robert Brown
- Meta wins AI copyright case in blow to authors The Irish Times · Cristina Criddle
- US court sides with Meta in authors' copyright lawsuit Verdict · Shivam Mishra
- A US judge rules that Meta's use of books to train Llama is protected by fair use but says his opinion is more a reflection of the plaintiffs' poor arguments Bloomberg Law · Isaiah Poritz
- A federal judge ruled that Anthropic didn't break the law by using copyrighted books for AI training. Anthropic will still face trial over accusations that it obtained books from piracy websites. … Christian Bowman
- 2-0 to AI companies vs authors of copyrighted material under US law. Anthropic and Meta won their initial ‘fair use’ cases in court this week. … Frank Dias
- Meta Beats Copyright Suit From Authors Over AI Training on Books Slashdot · Msmash
- Judge says AI engines can index books but can't pirate them The Torment Nexus · Mathew Ingram
- Getty Images Drops Main Copyright Claims Against Stability AI in UK Legal Case PetaPixel · Matt Growcoot
- Getty Pivots in UK Lawsuit Against Stability AI, Shifting the Copyright Battleground WinBuzzer · Markus Kasanmascheff
- Getty drops copyright allegations in UK lawsuit against Stability AI Associated Press · Kelvin Chan
- Getty Drops Primary Copyright Infringement Claim Against Stability AI Law.com · Molly G Smith
- #Gettytrial - NO MORE primary copyright infringement — On its first morning of closing submissions, Getty has dropped its primary copyright infringement claims against Stability AI. … Rebecca Newman
Discussion
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@eicathomefinn
Margot Finn
on bluesky
However, the San Francisco district judge ‘warned that his decision reflected the authors’ failure to properly make their case'. He did not find that Meta's actions were lawful, but rather that the authors ‘made the wrong arguments and failed to develop a record in support of th…
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@willoremus.com
Will Oremus
on bluesky
Court rulings are weird. — Anthropic gets in trouble for pirating books and it's a win for AI companies. — Authors' case against Meta gets dismissed and it's a win for creators.
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@ali-alkhatib.com
Ali Alkhatib
on bluesky
a year ago (+1 day) i wrote that the existing structures of professional ethics, regulation, best practices, etc... don't seem aligned or geared to minimize the harm AI does to us, and that we should put “destroying AI” on the table as an option — i guess add to my reasons “jur…
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@chup.blakereid.org
Blake E. Reid
on bluesky
...and just in case you thought Judge Alsup's framework for generative AI and copyright was going to uncontroversially become the law of the land, here's Judge Chhabria coming off the top rope with a sharp critique and a totally different approach [image]
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@bb.usefairuse.com
Brandon Butler
on bluesky
🚨 🚨 And now comes Kadrey v. Meta, with exactly the opposite approach to fair use from Bartz v. Anthropic, and yet, Meta wins b/c the Kadrey lawyers didn't make the (insane, unprecedented) market dilution argument with enough vigor for Judge Chhabria's taste. storage.courtlistener…
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@jason_kint
Jason Kint
on x
And...breaking. Another big AI decision. When a win is not a win. The AI training is fair use cult will be very disappointed by Meta's Summary Judgment “victory” in its copyright suit. Be very very careful not to be spun by Meta's proxies and advocates. READ CLOSELY. /1 [image]
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@stevesi
Steven Sinofsky
on x
2/ What has been missing from cases so far is the important pillar of copyright law which is substitution. Early cases seem to be arguing against fair use (a first pillar). This seems weak to me since the AI use case is so novel. BUT, the AI use cases are so far almost always …
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@stevesi
Steven Sinofsky
on x
Meta beats Copyright Suit - this is another ruling in favor of AI models but also another ruling where the case was weak/narrowly defined. In this case the judge goes out of their way to explain why. IMPORTANT. 1/2 https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ ...
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@ednewtonrex
Ed Newton-Rex
on x
🚨 Another AI fair use ruling today, and this one is *much* better for creators. 🚨 tl;dr: The judge said “In many circumstances it will be illegal to copy copyright-protected works to train generative AI models without permission.” ... This is a much more thoughtful interpretati…
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@wired
@wired
on x
The judge took pains to stress that his ruling was based on the specific set of facts in this case—leaving the door open for other authors to sue Meta for copyright infringement in the future. ...
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@jason_kint
Jason Kint
on x
For the Sam Altman's of the world who have tried to invent a “right to learn” for their LLM, Judge Chhabria addressed the difference between a human reading a book and an LLM ingesting it. This matters. /6 [image]
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@eriqgardner
Eriq Gardner
on x
A.I. copyright rulings coming fast and furious now. They will be more soon, not all in favor of A.I., mark my words. https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ ...
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r/technology
r
on reddit
Meta wins artificial intelligence copyright case in blow to authors
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r/law
r
on reddit
Federal judge rules copyrighted books are fair use for AI training
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r/law
r
on reddit
Meta Wins Blockbuster AI Copyright Case—but There's a Catch
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r/books
r
on reddit
Meta Wins Blockbuster AI Copyright Case—but There's a Catch
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@technollama
Andres Guadamuz
on x
I'd also wager that this case could have an effect on the ongoing copyright consultation. No AI company will perform any training in the UK after this result, so whatever is decided in the consultation will be moot as even any exception would have practically no effect.
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@technollama
Andres Guadamuz
on x
This is big because it gives us an indication of the problems that future copyright infringement cases will have in the UK. Getty have dropped the case because they weren't able to prove that training took place in the UK, so no jurisdiction for copyright infringement.
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@shakeelhashim
Shakeel
on x
Pretty terrible week for AI copyright advocates
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@technollama
Andres Guadamuz
on x
Huge news coming out of the Getty v Stability AI trial in the UK. Getty have dropped their primary copyright infringement claims in their trial, and will be relying on the trade mark claims. https://www.linkedin.com/...
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@technollama
Andres Guadamuz
on x
Whenever we illustrate the Getty v Stability case in the future, this is the image that will be used, which tells you everything you need to know. I won't even mention that it features a Tottenham player, which is unforgivable in its own right. [image]
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@dorialexander
Alexander Doria
on x
Looks to be clarification season for AI training and copyright: *Fair use/Google books doctrine holds on in the US. *In all likelyhood, text & data mining exception will apply to AI training [EU] *Jurisdiction only applies when training take place on location [UK]