Key Points
- A judge ruled in favor of Meta, saying its use of books to train its Llama AI model qualifies as “fair use.”
- The judge stated that the authors failed to demonstrate that Meta’s AI training negatively impacted their book sales.
- The judge stressed that his decision only applies to the 13 authors in this specific case, not to all authors.
- He made it clear that this does not mean AI companies can use copyrighted material for free and called Meta’s defense arguments “nonsense.”
Meta scored a big win on Wednesday in a major copyright lawsuit brought by a group of prominent authors, including Sarah Silverman and Ta-Nehisi Coates. The authors claimed that Meta illegally used their books to train its Llama artificial intelligence model.
However, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria sided with Meta, ruling that its use of the books is protected under the “fair use” doctrine of U.S. copyright law.
The judge stated that while it’s normally illegal to copy protected works, the authors in this specific case failed to demonstrate that Meta’s actions had caused them any “market harm.” He called their arguments “half-hearted” and said they didn’t present a compelling case. Because Meta used the books for a “transformative purpose”—to teach an AI rather than resell the books—the judge ruled it was a fair use.
But the judge made it very clear that this ruling is not a free pass for Meta or any other AI company. He slammed Meta’s argument that making them pay for training data would kill AI innovation, calling that idea “nonsense.”
Crucially, he emphasized that his decision only applies to these 13 authors, not the thousands of others whose work was also used. He practically invited other authors to bring better lawsuits in the future, saying this ruling “does not stand for the proposition that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful.”
The fight isn’t over yet, as the authors still have a separate claim that Meta may have illegally distributed their books through torrents.
