Farnsworth v. Meta Platforms, Inc.

On 18 October 2024, Farnsworth v Meta was consolidated into Kadrey v Meta.

Farnsworth v Meta is a class action filed by author Christopher Farnsworth on 1 October 2024 under the Copyright Act, alleging that Meta Platforms, Inc. unlawfully reproduced and used copyrighted books to train its large language models (“LLaMA”). Farnsworth contends that Meta downloaded and copied pirated literary works—including his novels Blood Oath, Flashmob, The Eternal World, and The President’s Vampire, from the “Books3” subset of the “Pile” dataset, despite knowing it contained copyrighted material obtained from pirate sites such as Bibliotik. The complaint alleges that Meta willfully reproduced these works to improve the commercial quality of LLaMA and gain an advantage in the AI market, depriving authors of book sales and licensing income. Farnsworth further claims that Meta’s conduct undermines emerging markets for licensed training data, while Meta simultaneously asserted copyright over its own LLaMA models. The action seeks damages, injunctive relief, and disgorgement of profits for direct copyright infringement and related violations under the Copyright Act.

This summary is provided for educational and research purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Allegations described are those made in the filings. Please consult the underlying source documents.