April 12, 2025
Association of American Publishers Files Amicus Brief Against Meta in AI Case
Brief Supports Authors and Copyright Owners in Class Action Suit
On April 11, 2025, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) filed an important amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs in a major AI class action suit against Meta. Plaintiffs named in the original suit include authors Sarah Silverman, Richard Kadrey, and Christopher Golden, on behalf of themselves and others.
The lawsuit, filed December 22, 2023 in the Northern District of California, states that Meta appropriated millions of human-authored works—including books by the lead plaintiffs— for the purpose of training and accelerating its consumer-facing generative AI model, “LLaMA.” The suit further claims that Meta acquired much of the infringing material from notorious pirate sites on the watch lists of the U.S. government, such as Anna’s Archives and LibGen.
“In filing this amicus brief, AAP explains in detail that Meta’s systematic copying and encoding of protected creative works, word by word, into a large language model, is not a transformative fair use under the law, but rather, grossly exceeds the doctrine’s legal purpose and judicial precedent,” commented Maria A. Pallante, President and CEO, Association of American Publishers. “The brief also corrects Meta’s spurious assertion that there is no way for AI developers to lawfully license what they seek to use, citing numerous examples to the contrary of existing and emerging markets.”
Noting that Meta intended to capture the author’s protected expression and not merely statistical information, AAP’s brief warns that Meta’s actions undermine the copyright incentives that Congress enacted and eviscerate the ability of authors and publishers to realize their significant creative and financial investments in books and other intellectual property.
As the brief states, a fair use finding “would not only undermine the public interest in a workable copyright regime, but encourage and reward theft twice over.”
Key highlights from the brief include:
“Defendant Meta Platforms, Inc. (‘Meta’), a company valued at over a trillion dollars, asks this Court to declare that it is free to appropriate and commercially exploit the content of copyrighted works on a massive scale without permission or payment for that content, a ruling that would have catastrophic consequences for authors and publishers of books, journals and other textual works protected by copyright.”
“Meta’s decision to appropriate millions of DRM-free books and other texts from pirate libraries is incompatible with a finding of fair use. A ruling that legitimizes such conduct in the name of fair use would be directly contrary to Congress’ express intent when in enacting the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) in 1998, which updated the Copyright Act for the digital age, Congress sought to ensure a thriving online marketplace for copyrighted works in protected formats.”
“Meta claims “there is no evidence that a market for licensing books to train LLMs” exists, and there is “no economically feasible mechanism for Meta or other LLM developers to obtain licensed copies. Meta’s claims are patently false.”
“The existence of an active market for AI training materials is indisputable.”
“Since AI emerged in public life with the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022, AI companies including OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT), Microsoft, Amazon, and others have entered into content licensing deals with publishers in order to access and use their works to build and operate AI systems.”
“The below chart lists AI licensing deals for textual works of which AAP is aware, either directly from its members or through public reports. Undoubtedly there are many more that are not known to AAP or are still in the pipeline.”
“Some researchers estimate the AI training license market to be valued at $2.5 billion now, and projected to grow to $30 billion within a decade. Licensing structures continue to evolve that enable authors and content owners to participate in collective deals, receive attribution when AI tools rely upon their work, and be compensated for their contributions.”
“Significantly, despite entering into discussions with book publishers to acquire authorized copies of their works to train Llama, Meta instead chose to acquire texts from notorious pirate sites like LibGen and Anna’s Archive. In light of this history, it is perhaps unsurprising that Meta seeks to deny the very existence of a viable market for AI training materials.”
“Common sense dictates that authors’ words themselves, not just “statistical information” about them, are stored in the model. Otherwise how could the model capture “word order” or “syntax”? And how would Llama generate word-based output?”
“In addition to avoiding the inconvenience and expense of licensing and compensating copyright owners for the commercial use of their content, Meta opted to evade technological protections that are essential to a functioning online marketplace for copyrighted works. This is manifestly at odds with the mandate of Congress in adopting the DMCA. A finding of fair use in this case would not only undermine the public interest in a workable copyright regime, but encourage and reward theft twice over.”
“Just as the long-term public interest is served by protecting the exclusive rights of copyright owners, the long-term potential of AI technology will only be realized by preserving the marketable rights that enable authors, publishers, and AI developers to engage in mutually beneficial commercial transactions.”
Read the full amicus brief here.
About AAP
AAP | The Association of American Publishers represents the leading book, journal, and education publishers in the United States on matters of law and policy, advocating for outcomes that incentivize and protect works of authorship and the creative, intellectual, and financial investments that make them possible. As essential participants in local markets and the global economy, our members invest in and inspire the exchange of ideas, transforming the world we live in one word at a time. Find us online at www.publishers.org or on Twitter and Instagram at @AmericanPublish.