Meta Sued For Allegedly Using Porn To Train AI

Adult film producers Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media, have launched a major lawsuit against Meta, accusing the tech giant to have illegally downloaded and distributed almost 2,400 copyrighted adult films in order to train its AI models.

The California federal court lawsuit – first retrieved by ArsTechnica – states that Meta used the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing system to download pirated content, since at least 2018. The adult sites claim that Meta downloaded the videos while simultaneously sharing them over weeks or months.

This tactic, they allege, helped Meta download other files faster due to BitTorrent’s “tit-for-tat” system, which rewards users who share more popular content.

“Meta specifically targeted Plaintiffs’ content for distribution in order to accelerate its downloads of vast amounts of other content,” the lawsuit says.

Strike 3 argues that Meta’s actions gave it an unfair competitive advantage, because its AI models learned from high-quality porn content, which could result in the creation of similar adult content.

“By training so specifically on Plaintiffs’ Works, Meta’s AI Movie Gen may very well soon produce full length films with Plaintiffs’ identical style and quality,” they said.

The lawsuit also raises concerns that Meta’s piracy may have let minors access adult films without age checks, in violation of new state laws. “Plaintiffs cannot compete against Meta when it ignores federal and state laws and offers Plaintiffs’ works for free,” Strike 3 alleged.

The evidence shows more than 100,000 unauthorized distribution instances linked to Meta’s IP addresses through “stealth”  networks, and even from a Meta employee’s personal home network. Meta states “We’re reviewing the complaint, but don’t believe Strike’s claims are accurate,” as reported by ArsTechnica.

TorrentFreak notes that the court could impose penalties of up to $359 million on Meta while requiring the company to remove pirated content from its AI training data.