In a legal move that could shake the tech world, Meta—the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp—is facing a lawsuit accusing it of pirating thousands of pornographic videos and using them to train its artificial intelligence models without any legal authorization.
Direct Accusations of Piracy
Porn production companies Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media have filed a lawsuit in a U.S. federal court, accusing Meta of downloading and sharing up to 2,396 pornographic videos via the BitTorrent network, an open-source file-sharing system.
According to the complaint, Meta used a tool called VXN Scan to distribute these videos through 47 internal IP addresses associated with the company. The operation reportedly lasted weeks or even months, aimed at collecting large volumes of visual data to feed its AI algorithms.
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Training AI Using Pirated Content
The allegedly pirated content was reportedly used to train systems such as:
- Meta AI: The company’s multi-purpose smart assistant.
- LLaMA: A large open-source language model.
- Meta MovieGen: A new project to generate AI-based video content.
The complaint emphasizes that Meta utilized BitTorrent’s tit-for-tat protocol, which encourages data sharing to speed up downloads, suggesting a deliberate effort to quickly acquire full copies of the videos.
⚖️ Legal Demands
The lawsuit demands:
- $359 million in damages (equivalent to $150,000 per video).
- A permanent injunction preventing Meta from using any content owned by the plaintiffs.
- Immediate deletion of any training data created using the pirated content.
Past Accusations: Pirated Books Too?
This isn’t the first time Meta has faced allegations of using pirated content. In early 2025, reports surfaced that it used over 7 million pirated e-books from platforms like LibGen and Z-Library to train its LLaMA model, despite internal legal warnings.
Media outlets reported that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally approved the use of this data, arguing that its “economic value was limited” and claiming it fell under fair use.
What Does This Mean for the Future of AI?
The Meta case sheds light on the legal gray areas surrounding the use of data for AI training. As tech companies race to gather massive datasets to improve their models, new challenges arise involving:
- Copyright and intellectual property rights
- Privacy and ethical considerations
- Legitimacy of data sources used in training
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In conclusion, this lawsuit exposes a darker side of the AI development race, where the lines between innovation and legal violations are increasingly blurred. The coming days may determine whether Meta faces massive penalties—or escapes once again under the umbrella of “fair use.”