Abstract:
U.S. District Judge Thomas Hixon of the Northern District of California issued an order on October 19 requiring Meta to explain which employees participated in or approved the decision to download “shadow library” data sets such as LibGen and Anna’s Archive through BitTorrent. The scope of disclosure includes not only those who actually perform downloads, but also those who participate in discussions, approve the use of BT, and decide whether to upload files to other users or how to reduce uploading behavior.
The order stems from a lawsuit filed by publisher Entrepreneur Media against Meta. The company, which publishes Entrepreneur magazine, accused Meta of assisting in the dissemination of unauthorized works by downloading books through BitTorrent and sharing files with other users during the download process. Meta previously stated that the relevant downloads were performed by engineers and were technical operations; the company did not find the individual who formally made the download decision, and data usage decisions were often made jointly by the team. The judge pointed out that the publisher asked not just the formal decision-maker, but also everyone in the team who participated in the decision-making, so Meta could not just use "no single person in charge" as a reason for non-disclosure.
The judge asked Meta to provide additional information about who participated in discussions before the download of LibGen in 2023, who approved the use of BitTorrent, and who approved the download of data from Anna’s Archive in April 2024; the company must also explain who decided whether to upload files, how to upload them, or how to limit uploads. Meta said it has taken measures to avoid external "seeding", but it is still unclear how much data has been shared. An expert from Meta previously estimated that between April and July 2024, the data uploaded by its AWS server through BT did not exceed approximately 30% of the data downloaded during the same period.
The case is part of a series of lawsuits surrounding Meta’s use of shadow library materials to train AI models. In another class action lawsuit filed by writers Richard Cadre, Sarah Silverman and others, the court previously determined that Meta’s use of relevant books to train models constituted fair use, but the dispute over BT uploading and dissemination still needs to be resolved. This order only requires Meta to supplement personnel information during the evidence collection phase. It does not rule on whether its downloading or dissemination behavior infringes copyright, nor does it determine that any employee or company has assumed legal responsibility. A U.S. judge requires Meta to disclose the employees who approved downloading pirated libraries through BitTorrent
U.S. District Judge Thomas Hixon of the Northern District of California issued an order on October 19 requiring Meta to explain which employees participated in or approved the decision to download “shadow library” data sets such as LibGen and Anna’s Archive through BitTorrent. The scope of disclosure includes not only those who actually perform downloads, but also those who participate in discussions, approve the use of BT, and decide whether to upload files to other users or how to reduce uploading behavior.
The order stems from a lawsuit filed by publisher Entrepreneur Media against Meta. The company, which publishes Entrepreneur magazine, accused Meta of assisting in the dissemination of unauthorized works by downloading books through BitTorrent and sharing files with other users during the download process. Meta previously stated that the relevant downloads were performed by engineers and were technical operations; the company did not find the individual who formally made the download decision, and data usage decisions were often made jointly by the team. The judge pointed out that the publisher asked not just the formal decision-maker, but also everyone in the team who participated in the decision-making, so Meta could not just use "no single person in charge" as a reason for non-disclosure.
The judge asked Meta to provide additional information about who participated in discussions before the download of LibGen in 2023, who approved the use of BitTorrent, and who approved the download of data from Anna’s Archive in April 2024; the company must also explain who decided whether to upload files, how to upload them, or how to limit uploads. Meta said it has taken measures to avoid external "seeding", but it is still unclear how much data has been shared. An expert from Meta previously estimated that between April and July 2024, the data uploaded by its AWS server through BT did not exceed approximately 30% of the data downloaded during the same period.
The case is part of a series of lawsuits surrounding Meta’s use of shadow library materials to train AI models. In another class action lawsuit filed by writers Richard Cadre, Sarah Silverman and others, the court previously determined that Meta’s use of relevant books to train models constituted fair use, but the dispute over BT uploading and dissemination still needs to be resolved. This order only requires Meta to supplement personnel information during the evidence collection phase. It does not rule on whether its downloading or dissemination behavior infringes copyright, nor does it determine that any employee or company has assumed legal responsibility.
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