The Kadrey plaintiffs filed their motion for partial summary judgment. They ask the court to rule that Meta’s use of torrenting to download while allowing others to upload pirated copies of books from so-called shadow libraries. This unauthorized torrenting does not constitute fair use, the plaintiffs assert, citing the Second Circuit’s decision in Hachette v. Internet Archive.
Here’s their argument on why this torrenting isn’t fair use:
Here’s a snippet of the argument:
Whatever the merits of generative artificial intelligence, or GenAI, stealing copyrighted works off the Internet for one’s own benefit has always been unlawful. UMG Recordings, Inc. v. MP3.Com, Inc., 2000 WL 710056, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. June 1, 2000) (the “mere fact” that copyright infringement is “clothed in the exotic webbing of” a new technology “does not disguise its illegality”) (Rakoff, J.). Meta knowingly used pirated databases to copy massive quantities of copyrighted works—all of Plaintiffs’ Copyrighted Books, books written by hundreds of thousands other authors, and even books authored by at least 10 Supreme Court justices who served in this century, including Justice Breyer’s Making our Democracy Work and Justice Ginsburg’s My Own Words.3 These pirated databases are illegal, routinely targeted by government enforcement agencies for criminal and civil copyright infringement.
That Meta knew taking copyrighted works from pirated databases could expose the company to enormous risk is beyond dispute: it triggered an escalation to Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta executives for approval. Their gamble should not pay off.
Kadrey Plaintiffs motion for partial summary judgment
Plaintiffs Say DMCA CMI 1202(b)(1), Fair use in AI training, and Remedies left for trial
The plaintiffs say other issues, including whether Meta’s training of its AI model on plaintiffs’ copyrighted works and the DMCA CMI 1202(b)(1) claim, should be left for trial due to factual issues:
