Publishers and authors in France have sued Meta Platforms Inc., claiming the social media giant widely used copyright-protected content without authorization to train its artificial intelligence (AI) systems.
“We are witnessing monumental looting,” Maia Bensimon, general delegate of the National Union of Authors and Composers (SNAC), said at a press conference Wednesday.
SNAC joined the National Publishing Union (SNE), France’s leading professional publishing association, and the Society of Men of Letters (SGDL), which defend the interests of authors, in filing a complaint in a Paris court earlier this week for alleged copyright infringement and economic “parasitism.”
“It’s a bit of a David versus Goliath battle,” SNE Director General Renaud Lefebvre said. “It’s a procedure that serves as an example,” he added.
SNAC, which represents 700 writers, playwrights and composers, added the lawsuit was necessary to protect members from “AI which plunders their works and cultural heritage to train itself.”
Meta was not immediately available for comment.
The lawsuit in France comes at a time when some privacy advocates in Europe fear regulators are backing down from a previously stringent enforcement in AI use. The latest draft provisions to the EU AI Act contain what some claim is watered-down language. At the same time, Meta and Apple Inc. are likely to face modest fines, if any, for allegedly violating the Digital Markets Act (DMA), according to a report in Reuters.
The European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act applies the same rules to generative AI systems that it does to the 27-nation bloc’s copyright law: Makers of AI systems must be transparent about the material they use for training under the law.
Last month, UK musicians released the silent album “Is This What We Want?” to protest their government’s proposed changes to AI laws that artists fear will erode their creative control. A statement signed by 48,000 artists, including Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus, further warned of a “major, unjust threat” to creative professionals’ livelihoods.
This week’s lawsuit in France, the first of its kind there, is the latest litigation against Meta and other large AI companies who already face a torrent of lawsuits in the United States from authors, music publishers, producers of video, and other copyright owners over the data used to train generative AI systems. In 2023, American stand-up comedian, actress, and writer Sarah Silverman and others sued Meta. In October, American novelist Christopher Farnsworth filed a similar lawsuit against Meta.
OpenAI faces a series of similar lawsuits in the U.S., Canada, and India.
