Writers Accuses Meta of Content Theft

On Thursday, approximately 100 writers gathered outside Meta’s London headquarters to protest against the company’s alleged use of copyrighted literary works to train its AI models.

The authors, demanding that Meta “keep its hands off their work,” have previously challenged the social media giant in court over similar accusations.

Carrying placards and chanting "Meta, Meta, book thieves," the protesters marched towards the Meta building, making their discontent clear.

The protest follows an investigation by The Atlantic, which revealed that Meta had reportedly used the pirate library LibGen to train its AI systems, allegedly utilising over 7.5 million books and 81 million research papers.

This discovery further fuelled suspicions raised during a US court case, where authors claimed that Meta executives, including founder Mark Zuckerberg, knowingly allowed the use of improperly sourced content from LibGen.

In response, the writers delivered a formal letter of grievance to Meta’s London offices, with a similar letter sent to the company’s US headquarters.

Protesting writers wrote:

“I’d write a sign but you’d steal it.”

The placards carried by the protesters sent a strong message, with some bearing the slogan "Get the Zuck off our books," directly addressing Zuckerberg’s involvement in the controversy.

Writers Expressed Feelings of Violations for Unlicensed Use of Their Work

AJ West, the author of The Spirit Engineer, was among the artists protesting outside Meta’s London headquarters.

He expressed feeling "abused and disgusted" upon discovering that his work had been included in the database without his consent.

West attempted to deliver a letter to Meta, signed by prominent authors such as Kate Mosse and Richard Osman, but found the company's doors locked.

He explained:

“It’s very telling that a company that saw fit to steal billions of words is now afraid of 500 words on one sheet of paper. It’s an insult piled upon insult.”

In a plea to the UK government, West condemned the silence of Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, calling it “reprehensible” that no action had been taken on what he described as “the biggest attack on British copyright history.”

He lamented:

“To have my work that took years to write, and that I poured my heart and soul into, used to make tech billionaires even more money, without my permission, is so disgusting.”

Similarly, 63-year-old author and artist Sophie Parkin voiced the profound impact of the situation, stating it was “a life-changer for everybody” and questioning the purpose of continuing to write if creators’ rights are not protected.

Turning up to the protest while wearing a sign on her hat that read “AI pay authors,” she pointed out:

“They aren’t even creating anything, they are stealing our words and then making money out of it.”

Writers Persist in Protest as Meta Holds Its Ground

The Society of Authors (SoA), a collective representing 12,000 writers, convened the protestors who are outraged by the discovery of their work being used without consent in Meta’s AI training models.

SOA chair, Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin said:

“A book can take a year or longer to write. Meta has stolen books so that their AI can reproduce creative content, potentially putting these same authors out of business.”

In the lead-up to the protests, several prominent authors, including Richard Osman, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Val McDermid, wrote to UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, urging parliamentary attention to the issue.

Major publishers, notably Penguin Random House UK, have also voiced support, with CEO Tom Weldon affirming their belief in the writers' cause.

He vowed:

“We will vigorously defend the intellectual property that belongs to our authors and artists, and we stand in support of the Society of Authors’ day of action to protest against Meta’s apparent disregard of copyright-protected works. We firmly believe that the unauthorized ingestion of copyrighted content to train generative AI models is a copyright infringement and we share the deep frustration and concern of our authors.”

Despite these protests, Meta maintains it has done no wrong, claiming that it respects intellectual property and emphasizing its contributions to advancing AI.

The company said through a spokesperson:

“We respect third-party intellectual property rights and believe our use of information to train AI models is consistent with existing law.”

This week, Meta has faced significant scrutiny in Europe, including fines from Turkish authorities after the company refused to suspend Facebook and Instagram during a protest.