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 to respond to human prompts.

“Artificial intelligence (AI) is powering ​transformative innovations, productivity and creativity for individuals and companies, and courts have ⁠rightly found that training AI on copyrighted material can qualify as fair use,” ​a Meta Spokesperson responded in a statement on Tuesday. “We will fight this lawsuit aggressively.”

The ​publishers allege that Meta pirated works ranging from textbooks to scientific articles to novels, including “The Fifth Season” by N.K. Jemisin and “The Wild Robot” by Peter Brown for its AI training. They asked ​the court for permission to represent a larger class of copyright owners and an ​unspecified amount of monetary damages.

“Meta’s mass-scale infringement isn’t public progress, and AI will never be properly ‌realised ⁠if tech companies prioritise pirate sites over scholarship and imagination,” Maria Pallante, President of the Association of American Publishers, said in a statement.

The lawsuit opens a new front in the ongoing copyright battle between creators and tech companies over AI training, in which ​dozens of authors, news ​outlets, visual artists ⁠and other plaintiffs have sued companies including Meta, OpenAI and Anthropic for infringement.

All of the pending cases will likely revolve around ​whether AI systems make fair use of copyrighted material by ​using it ⁠to create new, transformative content. The first two judges to consider the matter issued diverging rulings last year.

Amazon-and Google-backed Anthropic was the first major AI company to settle one ⁠of the ​cases, agreeing last year to pay a group of ​authors $1.5 billion to resolve a class-action lawsuit that could have cost the company billions more in damages for ​alleged piracy.

–Reuters–