- A federal judge ruled in favor of Meta, stating that its use of copyrighted books to train AI models qualifies as fair use and does not violate copyright law in this specific case.
- The authors, including Sarah Silverman, failed to provide sufficient evidence that Meta’s AI training harmed the market for their works.
- Judge Vince Chhabria emphasized that the ruling is limited in scope and does not establish a general precedent for all AI training involving copyrighted materials.
- The decision follows a similar ruling in favor of Anthropic and comes amid ongoing lawsuits against other tech firms like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Midjourney for using news articles, films, and TV shows in AI training.
A federal judge has ruled in favor of Meta in a closely watched lawsuit brought by a group of authors, including comedian and writer Sarah Silverman. The plaintiffs accused the tech giant of infringing copyright laws by using their books to train its artificial intelligence models.
However, Judge Vince Chhabria dismissed the claims, stating that Meta’s actions were protected under the “fair use” doctrine of U.S. copyright law.
The ruling marks a meaningful, although limited, win for Meta and the broader tech industry, which has been under increasing legal pressure for its use of copyrighted content in developing generative AI systems.
Fair Use and Lack of Evidence Led to Meta’s Victory
Judge Chhabria issued a summary judgment, meaning he concluded the case without the need for a trial. He determined that Meta’s use of the copyrighted books was legally permissible because it qualified as “transformative.” I
n other words, the judge found that Meta’s AI models did not simply copy and reproduce the books, but instead used them in a way that created something new.
Crucially, the authors were unable to provide sufficient evidence that Meta’s use of their books harmed the market for their original works. “The plaintiffs presented no meaningful evidence on market dilution at all,” Judge Chhabria wrote in his decision. Since the market impact is a key factor in evaluating fair use, the lack of compelling evidence on this front seriously weakened the authors’ case.
Not a Green Light for All AI Use of Copyrighted Works
Despite ruling in Meta’s favor, Judge Chhabria was careful to emphasize the narrow scope of his decision. He warned that the ruling should not be interpreted as a blanket endorsement of using copyrighted materials for AI training in all circumstances.
“This ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful,” the judge explained. Instead, he said that the plaintiffs in this particular case “made the wrong arguments” and failed to provide a well-developed record, especially concerning how Meta’s use of their content affected their financial interests.
Chhabria further noted that future cases involving similar practices may lead to different outcomes if plaintiffs present stronger evidence and arguments.
Ongoing Legal Battles in the AI Industry
The decision in favor of Meta follows a similar ruling just days earlier, when a federal judge sided with AI startup Anthropic in a related lawsuit. Together, these cases could help shape how courts interpret copyright law in the context of AI development, though legal experts caution that the landscape is far from settled.
While Meta and Anthropic secured victories related to the use of books, other lawsuits remain unresolved. The New York Times is currently suing OpenAI and Microsoft for allegedly using its journalism to train AI models.
Meanwhile, entertainment giants such as Disney and Universal have filed lawsuits against Midjourney, an AI image generator, for training on copyrighted film and television content.
Judge Chhabria acknowledged that not all content types will be treated equally under the fair use doctrine. “It seems that markets for certain types of works (like news articles) might be even more vulnerable to indirect competition from AI outputs,” he observed.
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