Meta prevailed on fair use, technically speaking. In Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-03417-VC, 2025 WL 4123456 (N.D. Cal. June 25, 2025), the Northern District of California addressed whether Meta's use of copyrighted books to train its LLAMA language models constituted fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107.
Plaintiffs, a group of prominent authors including Sarah Silverman and Junot Díaz, alleged that Meta acquired their works through shadow libraries, incorporating them into the datasets that were used to train Meta's LLAMA 1, 2, and 3 models. Meta acknowledged both downloading the copyrighted books via BitTorrent and incorporating them into the datasets, Still, Meta argued that its use of the copyrighted works was transformative and protected by the fair use doctrine.
The court concluded that while Meta did copy plaintiffs' copyrighted works without permission, plaintiffs' failure to present a viable theory of market harm - particularly the absence of evidence that LLAMA substitutes for their books - proved fatal to their case. Dkt. 598 at 40.
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