Federal Court Delivers Victory for Meta in High-Profile AI Training Copyright Dispute
A United States district court judge ruled Wednesday in Meta’s favor regarding a legal challenge initiated by thirteen literary authors, including comedian Sarah Silverman, who contended the technology giant unlawfully utilized their protected intellectual property to develop artificial intelligence systems.
District Judge Vince Chhabria delivered a summary determination—allowing judicial resolution without jury deliberation—supporting Meta’s position, concluding that the company’s utilization of protected literary works for AI development qualified under copyright law’s “fair use” provisions and therefore remained within legal boundaries.
This judicial outcome follows closely behind another federal court’s recent decision favoring Anthropic in comparable litigation. These consecutive rulings represent significant advantages for the technology sector, which has engaged in prolonged legal confrontations with media organizations while maintaining that AI model development using protected content constitutes legitimate fair use.
Nevertheless, these verdicts fall short of the comprehensive victories certain corporations anticipated—both presiding judges emphasized their decisions’ limited jurisdictional scope.
Judge Chhabria explicitly clarified that this determination doesn’t establish universal legality for AI training on protected materials, but rather concluded that these particular plaintiffs “pursued incorrect legal strategies” and failed to present adequate supporting evidence for appropriate claims.
“This judgment doesn’t establish that Meta’s utilization of protected content for language model development constitutes lawful practice,” Judge Chhabria stated within his ruling. Subsequently, he observed, “Regarding similar usage patterns like Meta’s, plaintiffs will frequently prevail, particularly when cases present more thoroughly documented records concerning defendants’ market impact.”
Judge Chhabria determined Meta’s protected work usage demonstrated transformative characteristics—indicating the company’s AI systems didn’t simply replicate authors’ publications.
Additionally, plaintiffs couldn’t persuade the court that Meta’s reproduction of these works damaged those authors’ commercial markets, representing a crucial element in establishing copyright violation.
“Plaintiffs provided no substantial evidence regarding market dilution whatsoever,” Judge Chhabria concluded.
Both Anthropic’s and Meta’s favorable outcomes involve AI model training using literary works, though numerous additional active lawsuits target technology companies for training AI systems on various protected materials. The New York Times currently pursues legal action against OpenAI and Microsoft concerning AI development using journalistic content, while Disney and Universal challenge Midjourney over AI training incorporating cinematic and television programming.
Judge Chhabria acknowledged within his decision that fair use defenses depend significantly upon individual case circumstances, with certain industries potentially maintaining stronger fair use justifications than others.
“Markets for specific content categories (such as news reporting) appear particularly susceptible to indirect competitive pressure from AI-generated outputs,” Chhabria observed.
