Adistrict judge sided with tech giant Meta on Wednesday in a major copyright infringement case, Richard Kadrey, et al. v. Meta Platforms Inc. It marks the second time this week that tech companies have scored major legal victories over AI copyright disputes against individuals. In the case, 13 authors, including Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, Junot Diaz, and Ta-Nehisi Coates, argued that Meta violated copyright laws by training its AI models on their copyrighted works without their permission. They provided exhibits showing that Meta’s Llama AI model could thoroughly summarize their books when prompted to do so, indicating that the AI had ingested their work in training. The case was filed in July 2023. During the discovery phase, it was uncovered that Meta had used 7.5 million pirated books and 81 million research papers to train its AI model. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of San Francisco ruled in a 40-page decision that Meta’s use of books to train its AI model was protected under the fair use doctrine in U.S. copyright law. The fair use doctrine permits the use of copyrighted material without obtaining permission from the copyright holder in certain cases. What qualifies as fair use depends on factors like how different the end work is from the original and whether the use harms the existing or future market for the copyrighted work.

Full report : A U.S. District judge ruled this week that Meta’s use of books to train its AI model was protected under U.S. copyright law.