Judge orders Meta to identify individuals

A U.S. federal judge has ordered Meta to identify individuals who authorized the downloading of millions of books and scientific articles from pirate libraries, including LibGen and Anna's Archive, in an ongoing copyright infringement case. The judge’s order, issued on October 19, 2026, requires Meta to specify the identities of those who made, authorized, or approved decisions related to the acquisition of these datasets, along with approximate dates of their involvement.

Entrepreneur Media sues Meta for unauthorized use

Entrepreneur Media, which owns the magazine Entrepreneur, filed a lawsuit in California in November 2025, alleging that Meta used its publications without permission to train its Llama AI models and contributed to their redistribution via BitTorrent. The lawsuit claims that Meta’s use of the content was unauthorized and that it helped spread the material further through file-sharing networks.

Judge rejects Meta’s motion to dismiss

Judge Vince Chhabria had previously rejected Meta’s request to dismiss the lawsuit. Meta had previously identified employees who executed the downloads, stating that decisions were often based on collective discussions without a single responsible person. However, Judge Thomas S. Hixson ruled that even if decisions were collective, Meta must identify all participants involved.

BitTorrent at the center of the dispute

The BitTorrent protocol, which allows users to share fragments of files while transmitting them to others, is at the center of the dispute. Meta claims it took measures to limit these transfers and asserts it knows of no one who explicitly decided to distribute files to third parties. An internal Meta work log cited concerns about the legal acceptability of using torrents, and an engineer admitted that sharing had been discussed internally.

Extent of file transfers remains contested

The extent of file transfers remains contested, with an expert estimating that data sent from Meta's Amazon Web Services servers between April and July 2024 did not exceed 30% of the downloaded volume. In June 2025, Judge Vince Chhabria ruled in favor of Meta regarding the use of books to train Llama, but this decision did not address the redistribution of books via BitTorrent.

Authors and publishers sue Meta

Entrepreneur Media argues that identifying responsible individuals could help establish whether the alleged facts resulted from deliberate decisions and support its accusations of contribution to infringement and unauthorized distribution. Nearly 300 authors initiated new individual proceedings against Meta in the United States on October 19, 2026, contesting the use of their works to train its models. In March 2025, the National Syndicate of Publishers, the Society of Authors and Composers, and the National Syndicate of Authors and Composers in France also sued Meta for infringement and economic parasitism.