Latest news with #JudgeChhabria
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Federal judge sides with Meta in lawsuit over training AI models on copyrighted books
A federal judge sided with Meta on Wednesday in a lawsuit brought against the company by 13 book authors, including Sarah Silverman, that alleged the company had illegally trained its AI models on their copyrighted works. Federal Judge Vince Chhabria issued a summary judgment — meaning the judge was able to decide on the case without sending it to a jury — in favor of Meta, finding that the company's training of AI models on copyrighted books in this case fell under the 'fair use' doctrine of copyright law and thus was legal. The decision comes just a few days after a federal judge sided with Anthropic in a similar lawsuit. Together, these cases are shaping up to be a win for the tech industry, which has spent years in legal battles with media companies arguing that training AI models on copyrighted works is fair use. However, these decisions aren't the sweeping wins some companies hoped for — both judges noted that their cases were limited in scope. Judge Chhabria made clear that this decision does not mean that all AI model training on copyrighted works is legal, but rather that the plaintiffs in this case 'made the wrong arguments' and failed to develop sufficient evidence in support of the right ones. 'This ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta's use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful,' Judge Chhabria said in his decision. Later, he said, 'In cases involving uses like Meta's, it seems like the plaintiffs will often win, at least where those cases have better-developed records on the market effects of the defendant's use.' Judge Chhabria ruled that Meta's use of copyrighted works in this case was transformative — meaning the company's AI models did not merely reproduce the authors' books. Furthermore, the plaintiffs failed to convince the judge that Meta's copying of the books harmed the market for those authors, which is a key factor in determining whether copyright law has been violated. 'The plaintiffs presented no meaningful evidence on market dilution at all,' said Judge Chhabria. Both Anthropic and Meta's wins involve training AI models on books, but there are several other active lawsuits against technology companies for training AI models on other copyrighted works. For instance, The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for training AI models on news articles, while Disney and Universal are suing Midjourney for training AI models on films and TV shows. Judge Chhabria noted in his decision that fair use defenses depend heavily on the details of a case, and some industries may have stronger fair use arguments than others. 'It seems that markets for certain types of works (like news articles) might be even more vulnerable to indirect competition from AI outputs,' said Chhabria. Sign in to access your portfolio
The Verge
10 hours ago
- Business
- The Verge
Meta's AI copyright win comes with a warning about fair use
Meta won a major legal ruling in an AI copyright lawsuit brought by 13 authors alleging that the company illegally trained its AI systems on their work without permission. On Wednesday, Judge Vince Chhabria ruled in Meta's favor, saying it is 'entitled to summary judgment on its fair use defense to the claim that copying these plaintiffs' books for use as LLM training data was infringement.' However, the judge also pointed out some weak points in the ecosystem of Big Tech's AI efforts and Meta's arguments defending its actions as fair use. 'This ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta's use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful,' Judge Chhabria said. 'It stands only for the proposition that these plaintiffs made the wrong arguments and failed to develop a record in support of the right one.' The ruling follows Anthropic's major fair use victory it won from a separate federal judge yesterday, who ruled that training its models on legally purchased copies of books is fair use. Judge Chhabria says that two of the authors' arguments about fair use were 'clear losers:' the ability for Meta's Llama AI to reproduce snippets of text from their books and that Meta using their works to train its AI models without permission diluted their ability to license their works for training. 'Llama is not capable of generating enough text from the plaintiffs' books to matter, and the plaintiffs are not entitled to the market for licensing their works as AI training data,' the judge wrote. The plaintiffs didn't do enough for a 'potentially winning argument' that Meta's copying would create 'a product that will likely flood the market with similar works, causing market dilution,' according to Judge Chhabria. He also discussed the Anthropic ruling, saying that Judge William Alsup brushed aside concerns about the harm generative AI could 'inflict on the market for the works it gets trained on.'
TechCrunch
11 hours ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Federal judge sides with Meta in lawsuit over training AI models on copyrighted books
A federal judge sided with Meta on Wednesday in a lawsuit brought against the company by 13 book authors, including Sarah Silverman, that alleged the company had illegally trained its AI models on their copyrighted works. Federal Judge Vince Chhabria issued a summary judgment — meaning the judge was able to decide on the case without sending it to a jury — in favor of Meta, finding that the company's training of AI models on copyrighted books in this case fell under the 'fair use' doctrine of copyright law and thus was legal. The decision comes just a few days after a federal judge sided with Anthropic in a similar lawsuit. Together, these cases are shaping up to be a win for the tech industry, which has spent years in legal battles with media companies arguing that training AI models on copyrighted works is fair use. However, these decisions aren't the sweeping wins some companies hoped for — both judges noted that their cases were limited in scope. Judge Chhabria made clear that this decision does not mean that all AI model training on copyrighted works is legal, but rather that the plaintiffs in this case 'made the wrong arguments' and failed to develop sufficient evidence in support of the right ones. 'This ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta's use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful,' Judge Chhabria said in his decision. Later, he said, 'In cases involving uses like Meta's, it seems like the plaintiffs will often win, at least where those cases have better-developed records on the market effects of the defendant's use.' Judge Chhabria ruled that Meta's use of copyrighted works in this case was transformative — meaning the company's AI models did not merely reproduce the authors' books. Techcrunch event Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $200+ on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW Furthermore, the plaintiffs failed to convince the judge that Meta's copying of the books harmed the market for those authors, which is a key factor in determining whether copyright law has been violated. 'The plaintiffs presented no meaningful evidence on market dilution at all,' said Judge Chhabria. Both Anthropic and Meta's wins involve training AI models on books, but there are several other active lawsuits against technology companies for training AI models on other copyrighted works. For instance, The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for training AI models on news articles, while Disney and Universal are suing Midjourney for training AI models on films. Judge Chhabria noted in his decision that fair use defenses depend heavily on the details of a case, and some industries may have stronger fair use arguments than others. 'It seems that markets for certain types of works (like news articles) might be even more vulnerable to indirect competition from AI outputs,' said Chhabria.
Reuters
11 hours ago
- Business
- Reuters
Meta fends off authors' US copyright lawsuit over AI
June 25 (Reuters) - A federal judge in San Francisco ruled on Wednesday for Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab against a group of authors who had argued that its use of their books without permission to train its artificial intelligence system infringed their copyrights. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said in his decision, opens new tab the authors had not presented enough evidence that Meta's AI would dilute the market for their work to show that the company's conduct was illegal under U.S. copyright law. Chhabria also said, however, that using copyrighted work without permission to train AI would be unlawful in "many circumstances," splitting with another San Francisco judge who found on Monday in a separate lawsuit that Anthropic's AI training made "fair use" of copyrighted materials. "This ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta's use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful," Chhabria said. "It stands only for the proposition that these plaintiffs made the wrong arguments and failed to develop a record in support of the right one." Spokespeople for Meta and attorneys for the authors did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The authors sued Meta in 2023, arguing the company misused pirated versions of their books to train its AI system Llama without permission or compensation. The lawsuit is one of several copyright cases brought by writers, news outlets and other copyright owners against companies including OpenAI, Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab and Anthropic over their AI training. The legal doctrine of fair use allows the use of copyrighted works without the copyright owner's permission in some circumstances. It is a key defense for the tech companies. Chhabria's decision is the second in the U.S. to address fair use in the context of generative AI, following U.S. District Judge William Alsup's ruling on the same issue in the Anthropic case. AI companies argue their systems make fair use of copyrighted material by studying it to learn to create new, transformative content, and that being forced to pay copyright holders for their work could hamstring the burgeoning AI industry. Copyright owners say AI companies unlawfully copy their work to generate competing content that threatens their livelihoods. Chhabria expressed sympathy for that argument during a hearing in May, which he reiterated on Wednesday. The judge said generative AI had the potential to flood the market with endless images, songs, articles and books using a tiny fraction of the time and creativity that would otherwise be required to create them. "So by training generative AI models with copyrighted works, companies are creating something that often will dramatically undermine the market for those works, and thus dramatically undermine the incentive for human beings to create things the old-fashioned way," Chhabria said.
