Law Professors Support Authors in Copyright Lawsuit Against Meta Over AI

A group of copyright law professors has submitted an amicus brief supporting the authors suing Meta for allegedly using their e-books without permission to train its Llama AI models.

Filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (San Francisco Division), the brief criticizes Meta’s fair use argument as an unprecedented overreach.

The professors argue that using copyrighted material to train generative AI isn’t “transformative,” noting it’s no different than using those works to educate human authors—a core intent behind the original content. They also stress that since Meta aims to generate outputs that could compete in the same markets, and does so for profit, the use is clearly commercial in nature.

Industry and creator groups back authors in Meta AI copyright suit with amicus briefs

On Friday, several organizations filed amicus briefs backing the authors in their lawsuit against Meta. These include the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers—a global trade group for academic and professional publishers—the Copyright Alliance, which advocates for creators across various copyright fields, and the Association of American Publishers.

Following publication, a Meta spokesperson pointed TechCrunch to amicus briefs submitted earlier in the week by a smaller group of law professors and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which support Meta’s stance.

In Kadrey v. Meta, authors allege unauthorized AI training on their works; Meta claims fair use and challenges their standing

The case, Kadrey v. Meta, involves authors such as Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, who accuse Meta of using their e-books without permission to train AI models and stripping them of copyright notices to conceal the infringement. Meta argues its use falls under fair use and that the authors lack the legal standing to bring the case.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria ruled that the lawsuit could proceed, though he did dismiss certain portions of it. In his decision, Chhabria stated that the authors’ copyright infringement claims represent “a concrete injury sufficient for standing.” He also found that the authors had “adequately alleged that Meta intentionally removed copyright management information (CMI) to hide the infringement.”

This case is one of several ongoing legal battles concerning AI and copyright, including The New York Times’ lawsuit against OpenAI.

Read the original article on: TechCrunch

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