Artificial Intelligence

US Judge Tosses Author Lawsuit over Meta AI Training

JUN 26 2025·Updated JUN 27 2025

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Above: The Meta AI logo is displayed on a mobile phone. Image credit: Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto/Getty Images

The Facts

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria ruled Wednesday that Meta's use of copyrighted books to train its Llama AI model constituted fair use under copyright law, dismissing a lawsuit brought by 13 authors, including Sarah Silverman and Ta-Nehisi Coates.
UPI
IP Watchdog
The judge emphasized that this ruling "does not stand for the proposition that Meta's use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful," but that the plaintiffs "made the wrong arguments" in this case.
Fox Business
Courthouse News
Chhabria criticized the authors for failing to argue that Meta's AI training creates a product that could cause "market dilution" by enabling the creation of similar work and for not demonstrating Meta's copyright liability.
Reuters
Guardian
Fox Business
The ruling follows a similar decision on Monday, in which Judge William Alsup found Anthropic's use of copyrighted books for AI training to be fair use. However, Anthropic must still face trial for downloading millions of pirated books.
PBS NewsHour
The Associated Press
The Times (UK)
Judge Chhabria also rejected Meta's argument that copyright restrictions would harm AI development, stating that companies making "billions, even trillions" can "figure out a way to compensate copyright holders" if using copyrighted works is necessary.
Deadline
CNBC
The case represents one of several AI copyright lawsuits working through U.S. courts that could establish how the AI industry handles copyrighted material, as Chhabria writes that those training AI systems "will generally need to pay copyright holders" for their material.
Wired
The Times (UK)

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The Spin

Techno-optimist narrative

This ruling protects transformative innovation while maintaining clear boundaries. Meta's use of books to train AI creates something fundamentally different from the original works. The judge correctly recognized that fair use allows this transformative process, just like humans learn by reading. Forcing AI companies to pay for every book would cripple groundbreaking technology that benefits everyone.

Tech Policy Press

Substack

Techno-skeptic narrative

Big Tech is stealing from creators and getting away with it on technicalities. Meta pirated millions of copyrighted works without permission or payment, then hid behind legal loopholes when caught. The judge even admitted that this piracy is generally illegal, yet ruled in favor of Meta anyway. Authors deserve compensation when their life's work trains billion-dollar AI systems that could replace human creativity.