Major publishing and authors’ organizations in France have initiated legal proceedings against U.S. technology firm Meta (META.O), accusing it of extensively utilizing copyrighted material without permission to train its artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Meta representatives have not yet responded to requests for comments.
At a press conference on Wednesday, representatives from the National Publishing Union (SNE), the National Union of Authors and Composers (SNAC), and the Society of Men of Letters (SGDL) announced that they had submitted a complaint against Meta earlier this week in a Paris court. They allege copyright violations and economic “parasitism.” The groups contend that Meta, which owns popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has illegally utilized protected content to develop its AI models.
“We are witnessing unprecedented exploitation,” remarked Maia Bensimon, the general delegate of SNAC. SNE Director General Renaud Lefebvre described the situation as a “David versus Goliath battle,” emphasizing that the case serves as a significant precedent. This lawsuit marks the first of its kind against a major AI corporation in France, although there is a notable surge in similar legal actions in the United States against Meta and other tech firms from authors, visual artists, music publishers, and other copyright holders concerning the data used to train generative AI systems.
In the U.S., Meta is currently facing a lawsuit initiated in 2023 by actress and author Sarah Silverman alongside other writers, who allege that the company improperly utilized their works to train its large language model, Llama. Additionally, novelist Christopher Farnsworth filed a comparable lawsuit against Meta in October 2024. OpenAI, the creator of the AI tool ChatGPT, is also dealing with numerous similar lawsuits across the United States, Canada, and India.
