Did Meta use 2,000+ pirated adult movies to build its AI? Explosive new lawsuit says yes

Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram, and a string of high-profile AI projects, is facing a fresh lawsuit from two leading adult film studios, Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media. The case, filed in California, accuses Meta of knowingly downloading and using more than 2,000 copyrighted adult films to train its artificial intelligence systems without permission and without paying the creators.

Allegations of systematic copyright breach

According to the complaint, Meta’s alleged infringement goes beyond a one-off incident. The studios allege Meta “wilfully and intentionally” acquired at least 2,396 films since 2018, not by buying them or signing up for a subscription, but by using BitTorrent, the peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol notorious for enabling piracy. The studios claim Meta not only downloaded the content, but actively “seeded” it as well, a tactic that both speeds up downloads and shares content back into the network, making the films available to others, The Independent reported.

Why does this matter so much? The suit claims Meta used these pirated movies to build foundational parts of its AI ecosystem, including Meta Movie Gen, LLaMA, and possibly other video-based AI products. By leveraging BitTorrent’s “tit-for-tat” system whereby you share files to download faster, Meta allegedly gained access to large datasets far more efficiently than if it had followed legal channels. The lawsuit argues this behaviour was deliberate, with Meta making an “intentional choice” to use and redistribute pirated films rather than seeking out legitimate licensing or downloads.

Strike 3 Holdings, already one of the most active copyright enforcers in the US, and Counterlife Media are seeking substantial damages of up to $359 million from Meta. They say the scale and intent go well beyond the company’s usual targets (typically individuals who share movies online) and now strike at the heart of corporate tech culture, raising tough questions about data collection in the age of AI.

Interestingly, the suit was sparked after authors accused Meta of scraping their work for AI training, with court filings in that case showing Meta had turned to pirate sources for data. This prompted the studios to dig into whether their own films had been similarly used. Meta has not yet commented publicly about the case. As courts consider this and similar lawsuits, the outcome could help define how far AI giants can go when sourcing training material and whether copyright law needs to evolve just as quickly as the technology it’s meant to protect.