Judge Dismisses Authors’ Lawsuit Against Meta Over AI Use Of Books

A U.S. judge has dismissed a copyright lawsuit against Meta, marking a win for the company in an ongoing legal battle over the use of copyrighted books to train its Llama AI model.

The case, filed by a group of authors, alleged Meta had used pirated copies of their works without permission.

The San Francisco court found Meta’s use of the material to be “transformative” under fair use laws—enough to dismiss the current claims.

However, the judge also acknowledged that stronger legal arguments could still challenge the practice of training generative AI on copyrighted books, especially when it enables users to produce competing works that could harm authors’ markets.

The authors' case involved well-known titles, including Sarah Silverman’s The Bedwetter and Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

The ruling clarifies that while Meta prevailed in this instance, the legal debate over AI and copyright is far from over.