Tech giants face pushback over AI and book piracy
UK experts say ‘fair use’ claims by Meta and Anthropic won’t succeed under stricter ‘fair dealing’ rules.
Meta and Anthropic’s recent attempts to defend their use of copyrighted books in training AI tools under the US legal concept of ‘fair use’ are unlikely to succeed in UK courts, according to the Publishers Association and the Society of Authors.
Legal experts argue that ‘fair use’ is far broader than the UK’s stricter ‘fair dealing’ rules, which limit the unauthorised use of copyrighted works.
The controversy follows revelations that Meta may have used pirated books from LibraryGenesis to train its AI model, Llama 3. Legal filings in the US claim the use of these books was transformative and formed only a small part of the training data.
However, UK organisations and authors insist that such use amounts to large-scale copyright infringement and would not be justified under UK law.
Calls for transparency and licensing reform are growing, with more than 8,000 writers signing a petition and protests planned outside Meta’s London headquarters.
Critics, including Baroness Beeban Kidron, argue that AI models rely on the creativity and quality of copyrighted content—making it all the more important for authors to retain control and receive proper compensation.
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