Judge dismisses authors’ copyright lawsuit against Meta over AI training

A federal judge ruled in favor of Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) on Wednesday, dismissing a lawsuit from a group of authors who claimed the company violated their copyrights by using their books without permission to train its artificial intelligence system.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria was the second in a week from San Francisco’s federal court to dismiss major copyright claims from book authors against the rapidly developing AI industry.

Judge Vince Chhabria ruled against the 13 authors who sued Meta, stating they “made the wrong arguments” and dismissed the case, according to multiple media reports.

However, he clarified that the decision applies only to those specific plaintiffs and does not establish that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials is legally permissible.

In recent court filings, Meta (NASDAQ:META), the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, argued that U.S. copyright law allows the unauthorized copying of a work if it results in a transformative use.

The company maintained that the AI-generated content produced by its chatbots is fundamentally distinct from the original books used in training.