((Automated translation by Reuters, please see disclaimer https://bit.ly/rtrsauto)) by Blake Brittain
Meta Platforms META.O used pirated versions of copyrighted books to train its artificial intelligence systems with the approval of its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, a group of authors alleges in newly disclosed court documents .
Ta-Nehisi Coates, comedian Sarah Silverman and other authors suing Meta for copyright infringement made the accusations in documents unsealed Wednesday in a California federal court. They claim that internal documents produced by Meta during the investigative process show that the company knew the works were being pirated.
Spokespeople for Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The authors sued Meta in 2023, arguing that the tech giant misused their books to train its Large Llama language model.
This case is one of several in which it is alleged that copyrighted works of authors, artists and others were used without authorization to develop artificial intelligence products. The defendants argued that they had made fair use of the copyrighted material.
-On Wednesday, the authors asked the court for permission to file an updated complaint. They said new evidence showed Meta used the LibGen AI training dataset, which is believed to include millions of pirated works, and distributed it through peer-to-peer torrents. peer.
Meta’s internal communications show that Zuckerberg “approved Meta’s use of the LibGen dataset despite concerns from Meta’s AI leadership team (and others at Meta) according to which LibGen is “a dataset that we know is hacked”
Last year, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria dismissed claims that text generated by Meta’s chat bots violated the authors’ copyrights and that Meta had illegally deleted management information copyright of their books (CMI).
The authors argued Wednesday that the evidence strengthened their infringement claims and justified renewing their CMI complaint and adding a new computer fraud complaint.
At Thursday’s hearing, Mr. Chhabria said he would allow the perpetrators to file an amended complaint, but he expressed skepticism about the merits of the fraud and CMI claims.
