Publishers and Law Professors Back Authors in Meta AI Copyright Battle

Authors are suing Meta for using copyrighted books to train its AI. Publishers and law professors filed supporting briefs, arguing against Meta's fair use claim. These briefs highlight the massive scale of allegedly pirated books used in Meta's AI training. The Google Books case is cited by Meta's defense, but the professors distinguish the two situations. They argue that Meta's AI directly exploits the creative content of the books, unlike Google Books. The professors warn of potentially widespread copyright infringement if Meta's actions are deemed legal. STM specifically condemns the use of illegally obtained data for AI training. The briefs contest the characterization of the training data as "publicly available." The legal battle centers on the transformative use of copyrighted material in AI development. The case raises significant questions about copyright and AI training practices.