![Meta has not yet challenged the authors’ central claim in the case that it violated their rights by using their books as part of the data used to train Llama [Meta]](https://th-i.thgim.com/public/incoming/et1o95/article67520064.ece/alternates/LANDSCAPE_1200/Meta_AI_Election_Ads_78611.jpg "Meta has not yet challenged the authors’ central claim in the case that it violated their rights by using their books as part of the data used to train Llama [Meta]")
A California federal judge said on Thursday that he would dismiss, for now, part of a copyright lawsuit brought by comedian Sarah Silverman and other authors against Meta Platforms over its artificial-intelligence system Llama.
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said at a hearing that he would grant Meta's motion to dismiss the authors' allegations that text generated by Llama infringes their copyrights. Chhabria also indicated that he would give the authors permission to amend most of their claims.
Meta has not yet challenged the authors' central claim in the case that it violated their rights by using their books as part of the data used to train Llama.
"I understand your core theory," Chhabria told attorneys for the authors. "Your remaining theories of liability I don't understand even a little bit."
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The lawsuit is one of several brought by copyright owners against tech companies over their generative AI systems. The cases largely revolve around the high-stakes question of whether the unauthorised use of copyrighted works to train AI is allowable.
The authors sued Meta and Microsoft-backed OpenAI in July. They argued that the companies infringed their copyrights by using their books to train AI language models, and separately said that the models' output also violates their copyrights.
Chhabria criticised the second claim on Thursday, casting doubt on the idea that the text generated by Llama copies or resembles their works.
"When I make a query of Llama, I'm not asking for a copy of Sarah Silverman's book – I'm not even asking for an excerpt," Chhabria said.
The authors also argued that Llama itself is an infringing work. Chhabria said the theory "would have to mean that if you put the Llama language model next to Sarah Silverman's book, you would say they're similar."
"That makes my head explode when I try to understand that," Chhabria said.
The judge said he would dismiss most of the claims with leave to amend, and that he would dismiss them again if the authors failed to argue that Llama's output was substantially similar to their works.
OpenAI separately asked the court to trim the authors' lawsuit against it in August. That motion is set to be argued next month.
Another federal judge in California last month rejected some similar claims brought by visual artists against Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt. The judge found that their generative AI output was likely not similar enough to the artists' work to infringe.
The case is Kadrey v. Meta Platforms Inc, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No. 3:23-cv-03417.
Published - November 10, 2023 09:05 am IST
