French publishing houses and authors have initiated legal action against Meta, alleging unauthorized use of their copyrighted works to train the company’s artificial intelligence systems. The lawsuit, filed by the Society of Men of Letters of France (SGDL) and the National Publishing Union (SNE), claims Meta scraped and used French books and texts without permission or compensation to develop its AI models. The publishers are seeking compensation and demanding transparency about which works were used in Meta’s AI training data. This case represents a significant challenge to AI companies’ practice of using copyrighted materials for training, highlighting the growing tension between intellectual property rights and AI development. The lawsuit specifically targets Meta’s large language models, including LLaMA, and seeks to establish precedent for protecting authors’ and publishers’ rights in the AI era. The legal action follows similar suits filed against other AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic, reflecting a broader industry concern about AI training data sources and copyright compliance. The French publishers argue that Meta’s actions violate both French and European Union copyright laws, and they’re demanding proper licensing agreements for any use of copyrighted materials in AI training. This case could have far-reaching implications for how AI companies approach data collection and training practices in the future.