Meta leverages Supreme Court ruling to dodge AI torrenting liability

Meta is looking to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling to shield itself from liability claims regarding its use of torrents to acquire AI training data. The company is hoping that the court's decision, which found that internet service providers are not liable for piracy on their networks, will help it navigate ongoing legal challenges.

Last week, Meta filed a statement in a lawsuit brought by Entrepreneur Media. The plaintiffs argue that Meta should be held liable for contributory copyright infringement because it utilized torrenting protocols. By seeding approximately 80 terabytes of pirated content to speed up its own downloads, the company allegedly induced infringement by facilitating uploads from other users.

This contributory infringement claim is notably easier to prove than the direct infringement claims seen in the Kadrey v. Meta class action. While the authors in the Kadrey case must provide evidence that Meta torrented entire copyrighted works, the contributory claim only requires proof that Meta facilitated the transfer process. Meta’s legal strategy now hinges on whether the protections granted to service providers can be extended to its own data collection practices.