Meta Faces Copyright Infringement Lawsuit in France Over AI Training

Core Points - Meta is facing a copyright infringement lawsuit in France from trade associations representing publishers and authors, accusing the company of training its generative AI model on their books without permission [1] - The lawsuit was filed in a Paris court focused on intellectual property by publishers' trade association SNE, authors' association SGDL, and writers' union SNAC [1][2] - SNE President Vincent Montagne stated that Meta's actions violate European Union rules, and the group has informed the European Commission [2] - Tech companies, including Meta, have encountered numerous legal challenges regarding the use of copyrighted materials in AI development [2] - Defendants like Meta argue that their practices fall under the "fair use" doctrine, which allows limited use of copyrighted works under certain circumstances [3] - A separate lawsuit in California alleges that Meta knowingly used pirated books to train its AI systems, filed by notable figures including author Ta-Nehisi Coates and comedian Sarah Silverman [3] - In February, another AI firm, Cohere, was sued by a group of news publishers for copyright infringement, accused of improperly using at least 4,000 copyrighted works for training its AI model [4] - Danielle Coffey, CEO of the News Media Alliance, emphasized that their content is being used to create copies of their material [5] - Cohere's spokesperson defended the company's training practices and expressed a desire for dialogue regarding the concerns raised [6]