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On April 11, the Association of American Publishers submitted an amicus brief supporting a class action lawsuit filed by several authors against Meta. The suit alleges that the company has infringed on copyright laws by utilizing copyrighted works to train its LLaMA AI model without proper authorization.
The brief posits that Meta’s practices do not align with fair use guidelines and contradict the company’s assertions that legitimate licensing options are nonexistent. According to Maria A. Pallante, the president and CEO of AAP, “Meta’s systematic copying and encoding of protected creative works, word by word, into a large language model, is not a transformative fair use under the law, but rather, grossly exceeds the doctrine’s legal purpose and judicial precedent.”
The lawsuit, initiated in December 2023 in the Northern District of California, features prominent authors as plaintiffs, including Sarah Silverman, Richard Kadrey, Christopher Golden, Michael Chabon, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Junot DÃaz. The authors claim that Meta has appropriated millions of copyrighted works, mainly sourced from piracy sites like Anna’s Archives and LibGen, without obtaining any permissions or compensations. This legal action is one of approximately 40 currently filed against AI companies by various stakeholders in the publishing sector.
The brief highlights a significant aspect of the debate over AI training: the economic landscape around licensing. It notes, “Some researchers estimate the AI training license market to be valued at $2.5 billion now, and projected to grow to $30 billion within a decade,” juxtaposed against Meta’s current valuation of around $1.4 trillion.
The AAP brief counters Meta’s claims of a lack of viable licensing avenues for AI training materials, asserting, “the existence of an active market for AI training materials is indisputable.” It cites existing partnerships between AI enterprises like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Amazon with various publishing houses as evidence of such a market.
Additionally, the AAP argues that Meta had previous discussions with publishers regarding the acquisition of authorized content but ultimately opted to use pirated resources. This process is elaborated on in Alex Reisner’s reporting for The Atlantic.
Key assertions from the brief include:
- Meta, valued at over a trillion dollars, requests judicial permission to exploit copyrighted content for commercial benefit without consent or compensation.
- The assertion that the very words of authors are part of the model’s data storage, not merely statistical information.
- AAP’s claim that Meta circumvented essential technological protections for copyrighted works, which contradict the objectives set forth by Congress in enacting the DMCA.
- The ultimate potential of AI technology should be supported by frameworks that uphold the marketable rights of authors, publishers, and developers, fostering mutually beneficial commercial interactions.
The brief warns that a ruling in favor of fair use could undermine the integrity of copyright laws and may inadvertently encourage further acts of theft. Other entities contributing amicus briefs include the Copyright Alliance, The International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, and various Copyright Law Professors.
A court session to address summary judgment motions filed by both parties is scheduled for May 1.
FTC Case Begins Today
On the heels of the amicus brief filing, Meta is also preparing to defend itself in an antitrust case initiated by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The FTC alleges that Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 were strategically implemented to stifle competition and establish a monopoly within the social media sector. The Commission argues that these transactions were aimed at removing potential competitors, constituting violations of federal antitrust regulations. As a remedy, the FTC seeks to force Meta to divest these platforms, thereby reinstating competitive dynamics in the market.
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