In a pivotal decision for the AI industry, a U.S. federal court has ruled that Meta’s use of books written by 13 authors to train its artificial intelligence models qualifies as fair use under copyright law. The decision, delivered by Judge Vince Chhabria, comes shortly after a similar outcome favoured AI startup Anthropic, signalling a trend in how courts are interpreting AI-related copyright disputes.

"This Court has no choice but to grant summary judgment to Meta," wrote Judge Chhabria, noting the plaintiffs couldn’t provide adequate proof that Meta's use of their books led to financial losses. The case, which included notable plaintiffs such as comedian and author Sarah Silverman and writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, was among the earliest major lawsuits involving authors’ rights and AI training.

The authors had filed the lawsuit in 2023, accusing Meta of using their copyrighted material without permission. However, the court found that the impact on the original market was minimal — a key consideration in fair use analysis. "The key question in virtually any case where a defendant has copied someone’s original work without permission is whether allowing people to engage in that sort of conduct would substantially diminish the market for the original," Chhabria explained.

This contrasts with a recent ruling by Judge William Alsup in the Anthropic case, which leaned more heavily on whether the AI’s use of content was transformative. Yet both rulings ultimately leaned in favor of the AI developers.

While Meta celebrated the decision, the legal team for the authors expressed dissatisfaction. "The court ruled that AI companies that 'feed copyright-protected works into their models without getting permission' are generally violating the law," said law firm Boies Schiller Flexner. "Yet, despite the undisputed record of Meta’s historically unprecedented pirating of copyrighted works, the court ruled in Meta’s favour. We respectfully disagree."

Judge Chhabria acknowledged that this does not grant AI companies blanket permission going forward. "In many circumstances it will be illegal to copy copyright-protected works to train generative AI models without permission," he wrote, indicating that future AI use may still need proper licensing agreements.

A Meta spokesperson, Thomas Richards, reacted positively to the outcome. “Open-source AI models are powering transformative innovations, productivity, and creativity for individuals and companies, and fair use of copyright material is a vital legal framework for building this transformative technology.”

This ruling is part of a growing wave of legal scrutiny. Just days ago, Anthropic also secured a fair use judgment, though it must still face trial on whether it stored pirated books. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Stability AI remain entangled in similar copyright cases, including allegations that Microsoft used over 200,000 pirated books to train its Megatron model.

As legal challenges continue across the globe, the balance between intellectual property rights and technological advancement remains in flux — with courts increasingly recognising AI’s potentially transformative use of creative content under fair use doctrines.