Meta mocked for raising “Bob Dylan defense” of torrenting in AI copyright fight
March 12, 2025
Meta fights to keep leeching evidence out of AI copyright battle.
Credit:
Pgiam | E+
Authors think that Meta’s admitted torrenting of a pirated books data set used to train its AI models is evidence enough to win their copyright fight—which previously hinged on a court ruling that AI training on copyrighted works isn’t fair use.
Moving for summary judgment on a direct copyright infringement claim on Monday in a US district court in California, the authors alleged that “whatever the merits of generative artificial intelligence, or GenAI, stealing copyrighted works off the Internet for one’s own benefit has always been unlawful.”
In their filing, the authors accused Meta of brazenly deciding to torrent terabytes of pirated book data after attempts to download pirated books one by one “posed an immense strain on Meta’s networks and proceeded very slowly.”
Knowing that such activity has been deemed infringing for more than two decades, the authors alleged, Meta took a risk, seemingly hoping to evade detection while struggling to catch up in the AI race and needing speedier access to large chunks of data. To cover its tracks, the social media company allegedly deviated from usual practices and attempted to conceal the torrenting by using Amazon Web Services.
“In most cases, and in this case too, users who download via torrent also upload the same file they are downloading to reap the benefits of faster file sharing,” the authors alleged.
In February, authors argued that Meta’s torrenting of the pirated books was infringing, even if Meta limited seeding when the downloads were completed, as the company claims it does. They explained that Meta’s leeching during the download process (allowing other users to download partial files before the download was completed) is allegedly evidence enough that Meta shared pirated books with others.
“There is no genuine dispute that Meta made widely available and even reuploaded to other online pirates at least some quantity of the pirated data as part of the peer-to-peer (P2P) sharing process,” the authors alleged. “Meta’s response in this case seems to be that a powerful technology corporation should not be held to the same standard as everyone else for illegal conduct.”
The authors mocked Meta for raising what they call “the Bob Dylan defense” of its torrenting, citing song lyrics from “Sweetheart Like You” that say, “Steal a little and they throw you in jail / Steal a lot and they make you king.”
Meta opposes requests for leeching evidence
Meta does not want the court to weigh these leeching claims. Last week, Meta argued that authors should not be allowed to do more discovery on Meta’s alleged leeching or introduce a new expert to potentially discuss why the leeching may have clinched the case for the authors.
While resisting introducing new evidence on leeching, Meta simultaneously argued that the authors’ motion for summary judgment based on the leeching theory is inappropriate because Meta has not had a chance to defend against the claims.
“They intend to move for summary judgment on torrenting issues, presumably in reliance on this new theory in a new expert report from a new expert, to which Meta has not had an opportunity to investigate or respond,” Meta’s letter said.
On May 1, Judge Vince Chhabria will weigh these arguments at a hearing where Meta will get a chance to respond to the leeching claims. Last week, Chhabria wrote in an order that consideration will be given to whether “it would be unfair to Meta” to rule on the summary judgment at this stage.
The authors, however, think that torrenting pirated works is so notoriously illegal that they now have an “open-and-shut case” of copyright infringement.
“Meta’s reproduction of Plaintiffs’ Copyrighted Books without permission, including through peer-to-peer file sharing, is not fair use,” the authors alleged, citing a major court ruling against Napster and insisting that “Meta infringed each of their copyrights, full stop.”
Chhabria may be curious to learn more about leeching, though. Last month, he admitted at a hearing that the term was foreign to him, Meta’s letter said in a footnote.
“I don’t remember hearing it before,” Chhabria said.
The authors are hoping to make Meta pay after Meta allegedly shirked offers to license their data for a fee.
“Meta plainly attributed significant value to the copyrighted works it took for free: a windfall to Meta, but not for authors, who were paid nothing,” the authors alleged. Further, “Whether another user actually downloaded the content that Meta made available” through torrenting “is irrelevant,” the authors alleged. “Meta ‘reproduced’ the works as soon as it made them available to other peers.”
Meta resists request to depose Zuckerberg
The authors want Chhabria to agree that Meta’s alleged leeching is key to winning their case. Their filing even pointed out that Meta’s pirating included copies of books written by at least 10 Supreme Court justices, seemingly hoping the judge will see that Meta’s activity harms more than just authors.
To further their case, the authors had asked for additional discovery requiring Meta to provide written answers about their torrenting and leeching. They also sought to depose both Meta employees who previously testified, including Mark Zuckerberg, as well as those whose roles in Meta’s torrenting, they suggested, were only recently clarified in unsealed emails.
“That Meta knew taking copyrighted works from pirated databases could expose the company to enormous risk is beyond dispute: it triggered an escalation to Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta executives for approval,” the authors argued. “Their gamble should not pay off.”
Meta said the authors’ new discovery requests were “unnecessary, unwarranted, and infeasible.” The company would only agree to allow six employees to be deposed ahead of the May hearing, including Nikolay Bashlykov, a software engineer who sent an internal message at Meta saying, “Torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn’t feel right.”
However, the authors “have made no showing to justify additional deposition time with Meta’s CEO Mr. Zuckerberg,” Meta claimed, offering instead two senior-level employees “who can speak to executive decision-making.”
Piracy can never be fair use, authors say
The authors claimed there are gaps in the court’s understanding about Meta’s torrenting, pointing out that Meta’s expert failed to replicate the company’s torrenting in her analysis, leaving it unclear “how much data Meta uploaded and/or seeded.” Meta’s expert also allegedly ignored that “BitTorrent’s default configuration provides for continuous uploading during the ‘leeching’ phase—simultaneous to downloading.”
Although the authors expect their leeching theory may be a winning one, they noted that fair-use findings typically come from juries, not from judges at the summary judgment stage. They also acknowledged that the court may decide “that the fair use analysis applies to Meta’s unmitigated piracy and use of torrenting.”
But “it should nevertheless grant summary judgment under the four fair use factors regarding Meta’s decision to make available to other P2P pirates millions of copyrighted books in exchange for faster download speed,” they argued.
Considering that Meta hasn’t found a single case where a court determined downloading or uploading pirated works on P2P networks is fair use, the authors warned, “The use of piracy to further piracy can never be ‘fair use.'”
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