A new lawsuit has placed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the center of a dispute involving copyright and artificial intelligence. Five major international publishers and bestselling author Scott Turow have filed a class-action lawsuit in the United States accusing the company of using copyrighted works without authorization to train its AI system, Llama.
The lawsuit was filed in the Southern District Court of New York and alleges that Meta used millions of books and academic articles without a license, and removed copyright notices from these materials during the technology training process.
According to the plaintiffs, company engineers allegedly used pirated content available on platforms such as Anna's Archive, LibGen, and Sci-Hub to feed the artificial intelligence system. The accusation further claims that Zuckerberg himself authorized and encouraged the use of these materials.
Among the publishers involved in the lawsuit are Hachette, Macmillan, McGraw Hill, Elsevier, and Cengage. The group argues that the practice represents a direct violation of copyright and threatens the business model of the publishing industry.
Impact on the publishing market
The authors claim that AI tools like Llama can generate texts, detailed summaries, and even entire works in styles similar to those of real writers, reducing the need to purchase the original books.
The lawsuit cites cases in which the system allegedly managed to reproduce specific literary styles and summarize works with a high level of detail. In one example mentioned, the AI reportedly indicated that it was trained with digital versions of copyrighted books, which raised questions about the origin of the data used.
Author Scott Turow described the alleged use of pirated works as "blatant, harmful, and unfair," highlighting the direct impact on authors.
Action requests
In court, the plaintiffs are asking that Meta be compelled to stop using illegally obtained copyrighted materials, as well as destroy all copies used in the AI's training. They are also requesting other measures that the court deems appropriate.
This lawsuit adds to a series of legal disputes involving technology companies and the use of copyrighted content to train artificial intelligence models. Similar cases have already been filed against companies such as OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, highlighting a growing debate about the legal limits of technology.
Company positioning
So far, representatives from Meta have not responded to requests for comment on the action.
The dispute is not unprecedented. In 2025, a judge ruled in favor of Meta in a similar case, finding that there was insufficient evidence that the technology would directly harm the publishing market.
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