Latest news with #SNE
Local France
12-03-2025
- Business
- Local France
French book rights owners take on Meta over AI
The three groups – publishers' outfit SNE and authors' and composers' groups SGDL and SNAC – complained in a statement of, 'massive use of copyrighted works without authorisation from their authors and publishers' by the American company. 'We have established the presence of many works published by SNE members in the body of data used by Meta,' SNE chief Vincent Montagne said in the statement. Meta has acknowledged using a database, Books3, containing the full texts of around 200,000 books including some in French to train its Llama large language model. In a separate US court case launched by authors, the company admitted last year to using the database until 2023, claiming that the AI training constituted 'fair use' of copyright-protected books. French publishers and authors have not publicly communicated an estimated value of the harm to them by Meta. Their case at the Paris judicial court 'should lead to a serious desire emerging on the part of AIs to take the creative industries into account,' SGDL head Christophe Hardy said. He called on AI developers to 'respect the legal framework and, where relevant, find compensation for the use of works that feed into' the technology.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
French publishers and authors file lawsuit against Meta in AI case
PARIS (Reuters) - France's leading publishing and authors' associations have filed a lawsuit against U.S. tech giant Meta for allegedly using copyright-protected content on a massive scale without authorisation to train its artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Representatives for Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The National Publishing Union (SNE), the leading professional publishing association, the National Union of Authors and Composers (SNAC) and the Society of Men of Letters (SGDL), which defend the interests of authors, told a press conference on Wednesday they had filed a complaint against Meta earlier this week in a Paris court for alleged copyright infringement and economic "parasitism". The three associations believe that Meta, which owns the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp social networks, was illegally using copyrighted content to train its AI models. "We are witnessing monumental looting," said Maia Bensimon, general delegate of SNAC. "It's a bit of a David versus Goliath battle," SNE Director General Renaud Lefebvre said. "It's a procedure that serves as an example," he added. This is the first such action against an AI giant in France but there is a wave of lawsuits notably in the United States against Meta and other tech companies by authors, visual artists, music publishers and other copyright owners over the data used to train their generative AI systems. In the United States, Meta is notably the target of a lawsuit filed in 2023 by American actress and author Sarah Silverman and other authors. The plaintiffs argue that Meta misused their books to train its large language model Llama. American novelist Christopher Farnsworth filed a similar lawsuit against Meta in October 2024. OpenAI, the company behind the AI tool ChatGPT, also faces a series of similar lawsuits in the United States, Canada, and India.
Reuters
12-03-2025
- Business
- Reuters
French publishers and authors file lawsuit against Meta in AI case
PARIS, March 12 (Reuters) - France's leading publishing and authors' associations have filed a lawsuit against U.S. tech giant Meta (META.O), opens new tab for allegedly using copyright-protected content on a massive scale without authorisation to train its artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Representatives for Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The National Publishing Union (SNE), the leading professional publishing association, the National Union of Authors and Composers (SNAC) and the Society of Men of Letters (SGDL), which defend the interests of authors, told a press conference on Wednesday they had filed a complaint against Meta earlier this week in a Paris court for alleged copyright infringement and economic "parasitism". The three associations believe that Meta, which owns the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp social networks, was illegally using copyrighted content to train its AI models. "We are witnessing monumental looting," said Maia Bensimon, general delegate of SNAC. "It's a bit of a David versus Goliath battle," SNE Director General Renaud Lefebvre said. "It's a procedure that serves as an example," he added. This is the first such action against an AI giant in France but there is a wave of lawsuits notably in the United States against Meta and other tech companies by authors, visual artists, music publishers and other copyright owners over the data used to train their generative AI systems. In the United States, Meta is notably the target of a lawsuit filed in 2023 by American actress and author Sarah Silverman and other authors. The plaintiffs argue that Meta misused their books to train its large language model Llama. American novelist Christopher Farnsworth filed a similar lawsuit against Meta in October 2024. OpenAI, the company behind the AI tool ChatGPT, also faces a series of similar lawsuits in the United States, Canada, and India.
Bloomberg
12-03-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Meta Faces Legal Challenge by French Publishers Over AI Training
French publishers and authors are suing Meta Platforms Inc. for copyright infringement, accusing the tech giant of using their books to train its generative artificial intelligence model without authorization. SNE, the trade association representing major French publishers including Hachette and Editis, along with authors' association SGDL and writers' union SNAC, filed a complaint this week in a Paris court dedicated to intellectual property, the group said at a press conference on Wednesday.
