Meta fends off authors’ US copyright lawsuit over AI
(Reuters) — A federal judge ruled on Wednesday for Meta Platforms META.O against a group of authors who had argued that its use of their books without permission to train its artificial intelligence system infringed their copyrights.
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, in San Francisco,said in his decision that the authors had not presented enough evidence that Meta’s AI would dilute the market for their work to show that the company’s conduct was illegal under U.S. copyright law.
Chhabria also said, however, that using copyrighted work without permission to train AI would be unlawful in “many circumstances,” splitting with anotherfederal judge in San Francisco who found on Monday in a separate lawsuit that Anthropic’s AI training made “fair use” of copyrighted materials.
“This ruling does not stand for the proposition that Meta’s use of copyrighted materials to train its language models is lawful,” Chhabria said. “It stands only for the proposition that these plaintiffs made the wrong arguments and failed to develop a record in support of the right one.”
A Meta spokesperson said the company appreciated the decision and called fair use a “vital legal framework” for building “transformative” AI technology.
The lawsuit is one of several copyright cases brought by writers, news outlets and other copyright owners against companies including OpenAI, Microsoft MSFT.O and Anthropic over their AI training.
The legal doctrine of fair use allows the use of copyrighted works without the copyright owner’s permission in some circumstances. It is a key defense for the tech companies.
Copyright owners say AI companies unlawfully copy their work to generate competing content that threatens their livelihoods.
Greece arrests Georgian suspected of fueling Chios fire with cigarette
ATHENS (Reuters) — Greece has arrested a Georgian woman suspected of discarding a cigarette that helped trigger one of several wildfires razing land and threatening homes on the island of Chios.
Blazes broke out on Chios in the Aegean Sea on Sunday and tore through 10,000 acres of mainly bush and pasture land in three days, Greece’s climate crisis and civil protection ministry said on Wednesday.
The fire brigade said in a statement that the woman was arrested on Tuesday night and that authorities were still investigating the cause of the fires.
The Georgian was charged with unintentional arson, two fire brigade officials told Reuters on condition anonymity. Witnesses saw her drop a cigarette, one of the officials said.
Though the wildfires were largely contained by Wednesday, hundreds of firefighters remained on Chios to prevent rekindling and bring all fronts under control, the Greek fire brigade said.
At Europe’s southernmost tip, Greece is often hit by wildfires during its hot and dry summers, but authorities say the fast-changing climate is fueling more destructive blazes.
The Greek government has paid hundreds of millions of euros in damages related to extreme weather to households and farmers and to update firefighting equipment.
It has upped firefighter numbers to a record 18,000 this year in anticipation of a challenging fire season. They will be assisted by 294 firefighters from five European countries from July 1 to Sept. 15.
© 2025 The New York Times Company