Meta ordered to name executives in piracy case
Ars Technica: Meta tries to scapegoat staff who downloaded torrents to spare execs
In copyright lawsuits over AI training, Meta has spent weeks blaming staff for downloading torrents. The company has now been ordered to name executives who authorized decisions to pirate books from shadow libraries like Anna’s Archive and LibGen, TorrentFreak reported. In a discovery order impacting a class action raised by book authors—including Richard Kadrey and Sarah Silverman—as well as a lawsuit from publisher Entrepreneur Media, Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixon largely agreed that Meta must
Get smart on it
In copyright lawsuits over AI training, a tech company has been ordered by a judge to identify executives who authorized the downloading of pirated books from shadow libraries. The company had previously argued that staff members acted on their own initiative without formal decisions from leadership, but the judge rejected this position after finding that staff testimony indicated downloads required director or VP level approval. The court order matters because it compels the company to produce details about the chain of command involved in the piracy, including server log files that could show whether the company was also uploading the stolen works, which would strengthen the authors' legal case. The lawsuits were brought by book authors and publishers who argue the company intentionally chose to pirate their copyrighted works to train AI systems.
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