For years, Meta employees have internally discussed using copyrighted works obtained through legally questionable means to train the companyβs AI models, according to court documents unsealed on Thursday. The documents were submitted by plaintiffs in the case Kadrey v. Meta, one of many AI copyright disputes slowly winding through the U.S. court system. The defendant, [β¦]
Evidence instead shows that Meta "took precautions not to 'seed' any downloaded files," Meta's filing said. Seeding refers to sharing a torrented file after the download completes, and because there's allegedly no proof of such "seeding," Meta insisted that authors cannot prove Meta shared the pirated books with anyone during the torrenting process.
Whether or not Meta actually seeded the pirated books could make a difference in a copyright lawsuit from book authors including Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Authors had previously alleged that Meta unlawfully copied and distributed their works through AI outputsβan increasingly common complaint that so far has barely been litigated. But Meta's admission to torrenting appears to add a more straightforward claim of unlawful distribution of copyrighted works through illegal torrenting, which has long been considered established case-law.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears to have used YouTubeβs battle to remove pirated content to defend his own companyβs use of a data set containing copyrighted e-books, reveals newly released snippets of a deposition he gave late last year. The deposition, which was part of a complaint submitted to the court by plaintiffsβ attorneys, is [β¦]
