Lawsuit Accuses Meta Of Training AI On Torrented 82TB Dataset Of Pirated Books

Meta is involved in a class action lawsuit alleging copyright infringement, a claim the company disputes.

But the site adds that newly unsealed court documents reveal that Meta allegedly used a minimum of 81.7TB of illegally torrented data sourced from shadow libraries to train its AI models.

Internal emails further show that Meta employees expressed concerns about this practice. Some employees voiced strong ethical objections, with one noting that using content from sites like LibGen, known for distributing copyrighted material, would be unethical. A research engineer with Meta, Nikolay Bashlykov, also noted that “torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn’t feel right,” highlighting his discomfort surrounding the practice.

Additionally, the documents suggest that these concerns, including discussions about using data from LibGen, reached CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who may have ultimately approved the activity. Furthermore, the documents showed that despite these misgivings, employees discussed using VPNs to mask Meta’s IP address to create anonymity, enabling them to download and share torrented data without it being easily traced back to the company’s network.