Meta ESCAPES Copyright Blow—Writers Furious

Federal judges delivered conflicting decisions in landmark AI copyright cases, with Anthropic facing a trial for pirated books while Meta walks away unscathed in rulings that will shape the future of artificial intelligence development.

Key Takeaways

• Judge William Alsup ruled Anthropic’s AI training on legally purchased books is “quintessentially transformative” and protected as fair use, but ordered a trial over millions of pirated books.
• Judge Vince Chhabria dismissed the case against Meta, ruling authors failed to provide sufficient evidence of market harm from AI training.
• Both rulings establish precedent that AI companies may use copyrighted books for training without author permission, significantly benefiting the AI industry.
• A December trial will determine if Anthropic owes damages up to $150,000 per work for willful copyright infringement from its “central library” of pirated books.
• The cases highlight growing tension between protecting authors’ intellectual property rights and enabling AI development through access to diverse training materials.

Conflicting Rulings Create Legal Landscape for AI Training

Two federal judges in San Francisco have issued significant but contrasting rulings on whether AI companies can use copyrighted books to train their models without author permission. The decisions represent major victories for AI developers while raising serious concerns for content creators. Judge William Alsup ruled that Anthropic’s use of legally purchased books to train its Claude AI chatbot constitutes “fair use” under U.S. copyright law, while simultaneously finding the company liable for storing millions of pirated books. In a separate case, Judge Vince Chhabria completely dismissed authors’ claims against Meta over similar AI training practices.

The ruling in favor of Anthropic’s training methods provides crucial legal backing for the AI industry’s common practice of ingesting vast amounts of copyrighted material to develop sophisticated language models. Judge Alsup determined that such use is “transformative” rather than exploitative. “Like any reader aspiring to be a writer, Anthropic’s LLMs trained upon works not to race ahead and replicate or supplant them, but to turn a hard corner and create something different,” said U.S. District Judge William Alsup

Anthropic’s Piracy Problem Leads to December Trial

Despite the favorable ruling on AI training methods, Anthropic faces a December trial to determine damages for copyright infringement related to its “central library” of approximately 7 million pirated books. Internal communications revealed Anthropic employees had concerns about using pirate sites, eventually leading the company to change its approach. Judge Alsup made it clear that purchasing books after initially pirating them doesn’t absolve the company of liability. “That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for the theft, but it may affect the extent of statutory damages,” said the judge

A federal judge ruled that an artificial intelligence company did not break the law when it used copyrighted books to train its chatbot without the consent of the authors or publishers — but ordered it must go to trial for allegedly using pirated books. https://t.co/VyJmb8P1Up

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 25, 2025

Under U.S. copyright law, Anthropic could face statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work for willful infringement, potentially resulting in a massive financial penalty. The trial will assess exactly how the pirated books were used and evaluate resulting damages. The lawsuit was originally filed by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, who claimed their works were being unfairly exploited. These authors, along with many others in similar lawsuits against AI companies, argue they are “liable for massive copyright infringement” by using their creative works without permission or compensation.

Meta’s Complete Victory Shows Evidentiary Challenge for Authors

In contrast to Anthropic’s mixed result, Meta secured a complete dismissal of similar copyright claims. Judge Vince Chhabria ruled that the authors suing Meta failed to provide sufficient evidence that the company’s use of their works for AI training caused any market harm. However, Chhabria clarified that his ruling doesn’t necessarily declare Meta’s practices lawful. “This ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful,” said Chhabria. It stands only for the proposition that these plaintiffs made the wrong arguments and failed to develop a record in support of the right one.

Interestingly, Judge Chhabria’s comments suggest he recognizes the potential harm AI systems could cause to creative markets. “So by training generative AI models with copyrighted works, companies are creating something that often will dramatically undermine the market for those works, and thus dramatically undermine the incentive for human beings to create things the old-fashioned way,” said Chhabria

This acknowledgment highlights the tension between protecting intellectual property and enabling technological advancement, a balance the courts are just beginning to define in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

Industry Implications and Future Legal Battles

These rulings represent significant wins for AI companies including OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google, all facing similar lawsuits over their AI training practices. Anthropic expressed satisfaction with the court’s recognition of their methods, stating they were pleased that the Court recognized that using works to train LLMs (language learning models) was transformative, spectacularly so.

The decisions begin establishing legal boundaries that largely favor AI developers while forcing content creators to seek alternative methods of protection or compensation for their work.

With President Trump’s administration focused on American technological leadership, these rulings align with policies promoting innovation while potentially creating new challenges for intellectual property protection. Some media companies are already adapting by seeking licensing agreements with AI firms rather than pursuing litigation. The December trial for Anthropic will be closely watched as it may establish parameters for damages when AI companies improperly acquire copyrighted content, even as the broader practice of using properly obtained materials for AI training appears increasingly protected under fair use doctrine.