Scott Turow, Macmillan, McGraw Hill sue Meta for AI copyright infringement : NPR
NPR • • business
Key Points:
- Major publishing houses Hachette, Macmillan, McGraw Hill, Elsevier, and Cengage, along with author Scott Turow, have filed a class-action lawsuit against Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, accusing them of using stolen copyrighted books and articles to train AI models.
- The complaint alleges Meta knowingly sourced copyrighted content from pirate websites like LibGen and Anna's Archive to develop its Llama language model, with Zuckerberg personally authorizing the decision to avoid licensing fees.
- Plaintiffs seek statutory damages, a permanent injunction to stop Meta's use of their works, and an order to destroy infringing copies; they claim this represents the most significant copyright breach in history.
- Meta denies wrongdoing, asserting that training AI on copyrighted materials qualifies as fair use and pledging to vigorously defend against the lawsuit.
- This case follows a growing wave of legal battles between authors and AI companies, including a $1.5 billion settlement by Anthropic, highlighting ongoing disputes over copyright and AI training data.
