A federal judge sided with Meta on Wednesday in a lawsuit brought against the company by 13 book authors, including Sarah Silverman, that alleged the company had illegally trained its AI models on their copyrighted works.
禮拜三的時候,一位聯邦法官在 Meta 被告的官司裡判 Meta 贏了。這個案子是 Sarah Silverman 等 13 位作家告的,他們說 Meta 用他們有版權的書來訓練 AI 模型,這根本是違法的!
Federal Judge Vince Chhabria issued a summary judgment — meaning the judge was able to decide on the case without sending it to a jury — in favor of Meta, finding that the company’s training of AI models on copyrighted books in this case fell under the “fair use” doctrine of copyright law and thus was legal.
聯邦法官 Vince Chhabria 做出即決判決(意思是法官可以直接判決,不用送交陪審團)支持 Meta,認為這起案件中 Meta 用受版權保護的書籍來訓練 AI 模型,屬於版權法中的「合理使用」範圍,因此是合法的。
The decision comes just a few days after a federal judge sided with Anthropic in a similar lawsuit. Together, these cases are shaping up to be a win for the tech industry, which has spent years in legal battles with media companies arguing that training AI models on copyrighted works is fair use.
這個判決出來的幾天前,另一位聯邦法官也才在類似的訴訟案中判 Anthropic 勝訴。這兩個案子看來是科技產業的勝利,這些公司跟媒體公司纏訟多年,都主張用受版權保護的作品訓練 AI 模型屬於合理使用。
However, these decisions aren’t the sweeping wins some companies hoped for — both judges noted that their cases were limited in scope.
不過,這些判決並非像某些公司期望的那樣全面勝利,兩位法官都指出他們的判決範圍有限。
Judge Chhabria made clear that this decision does not mean that all AI model training on copyrighted works is legal, but rather that the plaintiffs in this case “made the wrong arguments” and failed to develop sufficient evidence in support of the right ones.
法官 Chhabria 明確表示,這個判決不代表用受版權保護的作品訓練所有 AI 模型都是合法的,而是說這起案件的原告「論點錯誤」,也沒有提出足夠的證據來支持正確的論點。
“This ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful,” Judge Chhabria said in his decision. Later, he said, “In cases involving uses like Meta’s, it seems like the plaintiffs will often win, at least where those cases have better-developed records on the market effects of the defendant’s use.”
法官 Chhabria 在判決書中提到:「這份判決不代表 Meta 使用受版權保護的素材訓練語言模型是合法的。」接著他又說:「在像 Meta 這種案件中,原告通常會贏,至少在被告使用行為對市場影響方面有更充分證據的情況下。」
Judge Chhabria ruled that Meta’s use of copyrighted works in this case was transformative — meaning the company’s AI models did not merely reproduce the authors’ books.
法官 Chhabria 裁定 Meta 在此案中對受版權保護作品的使用是具轉化性的,意思是 Meta 的 AI 模型並非只是單純複製作者的書籍。
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波士頓,麻州 | 7 月 15 日
Furthermore, the plaintiffs failed to convince the judge that Meta’s copying of the books harmed the market for those authors, which is a key factor in determining whether copyright law has been violated.
此外,原告也沒能說服法官相信 Meta 複製這些書籍損害了這些作者的市場,而這正是判斷是否違反版權法的關鍵因素之一。
“The plaintiffs presented no meaningful evidence on market dilution at all,” said Judge Chhabria.
法官 Chhabria 說:「原告根本沒有提出任何關於市場稀釋的實質證據。」
Both Anthropic and Meta’s wins involve training AI models on books, but there are several other active lawsuits against technology companies for training AI models on other copyrighted works. For instance, The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for training AI models on news articles, while Disney and Universal are suing Midjourney for training AI models on films and TV shows.
Anthropic 和 Meta 這次贏得訴訟,都是因為 AI 模型是用書籍來訓練的,但其實還有好幾起針對科技公司的活躍訴訟,都是因為他們拿其他受著作權保護的作品來訓練 AI 模型。舉例來說,《紐約時報》就告 OpenAI 和 Microsoft,因為他們用新聞報導來訓練 AI 模型;而 Disney 和 Universal 則是告 Midjourney,因為他們拿電影和電視劇來訓練 AI 模型。
Judge Chhabria noted in his decision that fair use defenses depend heavily on the details of a case, and some industries may have stronger fair use arguments than others.
Chhabria 法官在他的判決裡有提到,「合理使用」的抗辯會非常依賴個案的細節,而且有些行業在主張「合理使用」的時候,論點會比其他行業來得有力。
“It seems that markets for certain types of works (like news articles) might be even more vulnerable to indirect competition from AI outputs,” said Chhabria.
Chhabria 說:「看來有些類型的作品(像新聞報導)在面對 AI 產生的內容時,間接競爭下可能會更招架不住。」