A federal judge has permitted an AI-related copyright lawsuit against Meta to proceed, though he dismissed part of the case.
In the case of Kadrey vs. Meta, authors Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, and Ta-Nehisi Coates allege that Meta infringed on their intellectual property rights by utilizing their books to train its Llama AI models, claiming the company removed copyright information to obscure this infringement.
Meta contends that its training practices fall under fair use and has sought to have the case dismissed, arguing that the authors lack the legal standing to sue. During a court session last month, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria expressed skepticism about dismissal but criticized what he deemed “over-the-top” language from the authors’ legal teams.
In his ruling on Friday, Chhabria stated that the claim of copyright infringement constitutes “a concrete injury sufficient for standing” and noted that the authors have sufficiently alleged that Meta intentionally removed copyright management information (CMI) to hide the infringement.
The judge did dismiss the authors’ claims under the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (CDAFA), as they did not demonstrate that Meta accessed their computers or servers—only their data in the form of books.
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This lawsuit has already shed light on Meta’s approach to copyright, with court filings suggesting that Mark Zuckerberg authorized the Llama team to use copyrighted works for training, and that other Meta employees discussed using potentially problematic content for AI development.
Currently, the courts are considering multiple AI copyright lawsuits, including The New York Times’ case against OpenAI.
