Mark Zuckerberg ‘personally authorized’ Meta’s copyright infringement, publishers allege
The proposed class action says Meta copied millions of books and journal articles without permission and bypassed licensing talks after considering deals worth up to $200 million.
- Five major publishing houses—Elsevier, Cengage, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, and McGraw Hill—and author Scott Turow sued Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday in federal court, alleging the company illegally used millions of copyrighted works to train its AI system Llama.
- Plaintiffs allege Zuckerberg personally authorized Meta to download pirated books from websites like Anna's Archive to train the program, with his day-to-day involvement contributing to his net worth climbing to over $200 billion.
- By producing "knockoffs and imitations," Meta's AI program could "dilute the overall market for literary works," plaintiffs argue, while Turow called the unauthorized use of his books "shameless, damaging and unjust behavior."
- A Meta spokesperson told CBS News the company plans to "fight this lawsuit aggressively," arguing that training AI on copyrighted material qualifies as "fair use" and powers transformative innovations.
- This case follows a 2025 settlement where Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to authors, as courts continue determining consistent legal standards for evaluating AI training copyright claims.
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90 Articles
Publishers sue Meta for copyright infringement over AI training
Publishers Elsevier, Cengage, Hachette, Macmillan and McGraw Hill sued Meta Platforms in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, alleging that the tech giant misused their books and journal articles to train its artificial intelligence model Llama. The publishers, as well as author Scott Turow, alleged in the proposed class action complaint that Meta pirated millions of their works and used them without permission to train its large language models …
Major Lawsuit Claims Mark Zuckerberg ‘Personally Authorized’ Use of Copyrighted Works for AI
Five publishing houses and a best-selling novelist have filed a lawsuit alleging that Meta illegally used millions of copyrighted works to train its AI language system Llama, and Mark Zuckerberg "personally authorized" the company's copyright infringement.
The Nation's Top Book Publishers Are Suing Meta and Zuckerberg Over Books Stolen by AI
Some of the country’s biggest book publishers in various fields joined forces this week in opposition to an obvious existential threat, leveling a new class-action copyright infringement lawsuit against not just Meta’s AI program Llama, but also the company’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg. Meta, they allege, illegally used millions of their copyrighted works, accessed through pirated copies on dark corners of the web, to train the AI program L…
The application states that copyrighted works have been taken over by a large number of piracy pages in records and have been used without a license to train large language models.
Five major American publishers – Hachette, Macmillan, McGraw Hill, Elsevier and Cengage – along with writer Scott Turow, have filed a lawsuit in Manhattan against Meta and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg for copyright infringement.
In the USA, several publishing houses have sued the tech group Meta and its boss Mark Zuckerberg for alleging copyright infringement.
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