Judge orders Meta to name people who approved book downloads for AI training

A US judge has ordered Meta to identify the executives and other people who authorised or approved torrent downloads of copyrighted books for AI training. The ruling could clarify who made the decisions and strengthen authors’ and publishers’ claims that Meta knowingly facilitated copyright infringement.

Meta has argued that no one with authority decided to pirate books, describing the downloads as an informal process carried out by staff. Authors say Meta obtained 80.6 terabytes from LibGen and 35.7 terabytes from Anna’s Archive, and argue torrenting also involved sharing files with others. The judge also ordered Meta to produce server command history files that could shed light on whether it seeded works and how its claimed safeguards operated.