Scott Turow, Major Publishers Sue Meta Over Llama AI Copyright Use
Scott Turow and five major publishers filed a federal class-action lawsuit Tuesday alleging Meta illegally used copyrighted works to train its Llama AI models.
The suit, filed in the Southern District of New York, says Meta scraped millions of copyrighted books, journal articles, and textbooks, including from "notorious pirate sites," and removed copyright management information before using the material for AI training.
Plaintiffs Cengage, Elsevier, Hachette, Macmillan, and McGraw-Hill allege Llama can reproduce verbatim excerpts and mimic authors' styles, depriving them of licensing revenue. The complaint also personally targets Mark Zuckerberg, claiming he authorized use of pirated collections.
Meta disputes the claims and told CBS News it will "fight this lawsuit aggressively," arguing that training AI on copyrighted material can qualify as fair use under existing court decisions. The complaint cites alleged verbatim copying from a calculus textbook as evidence that the training process itself infringes copyright.
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📌 Key Facts
- On Tuesday, May 5, 2026, a class-action lawsuit was filed in federal court in New York against Meta and Mark Zuckerberg.
- Plaintiffs include author Scott Turow and publishers Cengage, Elsevier, Hachette, Macmillan, and McGraw-Hill.
- The suit alleges Meta scraped millions of copyrighted works, including from pirate sites, removed copyright management information, and used the material to train its Llama AI models.
- The complaint claims Llama can reproduce verbatim excerpts and mimic authors' styles, and it asserts Zuckerberg personally authorized training on pirated collections.
- Meta says it will fight the lawsuit and argues that using copyrighted material to train AI can qualify as fair use.
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