Recently, Meta has garnered significant attention for its practices in artificial intelligence training. According to a lawsuit, the company is accused of downloading a large number of pirated eBooks and articles without authorization for training its AI models. The core of this incident revolves around several leaked emails that provide further evidence of Meta's actions.
The emails reveal that Meta acknowledged downloading a controversial large dataset known as LibGen, which contains tens of millions of pirated books. According to court documents submitted by the plaintiffs, Meta downloaded at least 81.7TB of data from various shadow libraries via a website called Anna's Archive, including at least 35.7TB from Z-Library and LibGen. Furthermore, Meta had previously downloaded 80.6TB of data from LibGen. These figures indicate the astonishing scale of Meta's illegal activities. The plaintiffs pointed out that while other smaller-scale piracy cases have led to legal repercussions, Meta's actions are far more severe.
In the content of the emails, Meta employees also expressed concerns about the legal risks of their actions. In April 2023, the company's research engineer, Nikolai Bashlikov, stated, "Downloading torrents on the company's laptop feels inappropriate." By September 2023, Bashlikov's opposition became more pronounced, and he consulted the legal team. He noted, "Using torrents means 'seeding' files, which is sharing content externally. This is legally prohibited." However, despite such warnings, Meta seemingly decided to conceal its downloading and sharing activities and attempted to minimize the traceability of "seeding" actions through editing settings.
It is alleged that Meta also tried to reduce the risk of being traced back to its servers by downloading the datasets to non-Meta servers. This series of actions has sparked deep reflections on Meta's use of data and copyright issues.
Key Points:
📚 Meta is accused of illegally downloading 81.7TB of pirated books for AI training.
⚖️ Employees expressed concerns about legal risks and warned that the downloading activities could violate the law.
🔍 Meta attempted to evade legal responsibility by concealing its actions and using non-company servers.