Lawsuits · Meta
A court found that Meta first used a shadow library in October 2022 and downloaded Anna’s Archive in early 2024. In its own court filings, Meta admits torrenting LibGen and Anna’s Archive data to train some Llama models. Several suits are pending before Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco; four are set for trial on May 24, 2027.
Each statement is labeled by its source. Findings and orders come from the court; company filings and papers are the company’s own words; allegations are claims not yet proved.
Meta first used a shadow library in October 2022, when it downloaded LibGen, and downloaded Anna’s Archive, which includes LibGen and Z-Library, in early 2024.
Kadrey v. Meta, N.D. Cal., Dkt. 598 (June 25, 2025)On the named authors’ record, the court granted Meta summary judgment that training was fair use, saying the ruling “stands only for the proposition that these plaintiffs made the wrong arguments and failed to develop a record.” In March 2026 the court allowed the authors to add a claim over BitTorrent uploading.
Kadrey, Dkt. 598; Dkt. 700 (Mar. 25, 2026)Meta admits downloading LibGen data in or about October 2022, torrenting Anna’s Archive data including its Z-Library and LibGen portions, using some of it for Llama, and that some data was uploaded while it torrented. It says any uploading was de minimis.
Sullivan v. Meta, Dkt. 85; Elsevier v. Meta, Dkt. 78In interrogatory answers (signed by its lawyers, not verified), Meta says it obtained Books3 before 2023 and began downloading LibGen directly, without torrents, in about spring 2023. It says Books3 data trained Llama 1 through 4, LibGen data Llama 3 and 4, and Anna’s Archive / Z-Library data was first used for Llama 4.
Chicken Soup for the Soul v. Meta, Dkt. 140-6 (answers served Sept. 4, 2026), at 14–15, 19–20The LLaMA paper lists Books3 among the model’s training data.
Touvron et al., LLaMA (Feb. 27, 2023)Publishers allege Meta downloaded 134.6 TB by torrenting between April and July 2024 and uploaded 40.42 TB to others.
Elsevier v. Meta, complaint ¶ 99 (now N.D. Cal.)Textbook authors allege about 4,500 other users obtained LibGen files from Meta during its 2022 torrenting.
Sullivan v. Meta, complaint ¶ 51The suits over Meta’s downloads, with each one’s stage and the next date the public can follow. Dates come from the court’s schedule as the parties recite it; schedules change, so check the docket.
| Case | Filed | Stage | Next public date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kadrey v. Meta, No. 3:23-cv-03417 | July 2023 | Fair use granted to Meta on the named authors’ record (June 25, 2025); a claim over BitTorrent uploading was added Mar. 25, 2026 and is pending | — |
| Entrepreneur Media v. Meta, No. 3:25-cv-09579 | 2025 | Fact discovery closed Sept. 4, 2026; expert discovery closes Nov. 20, 2026 | Summary judgment briefs from Dec. 11, 2026; hearings by Feb. 25, 2027; trial May 24, 2027 |
| Cambronne Inc. et al. v. Meta, No. 3:26-cv-03725 | Dec. 22, 2025 | Same schedule; discovery rulings Sept. 30 and Oct. 2, 2026 | Summary judgment briefs from Dec. 11, 2026; trial May 24, 2027 |
| Chicken Soup for the Soul v. Meta, No. 3:26-cv-02333 | Mar. 17, 2026 | Same schedule; discovery rulings Sept. 30, Oct. 1 and Oct. 2, 2026 | Summary judgment briefs from Dec. 11, 2026; trial May 24, 2027 |
| Cognella v. Meta, No. 3:26-cv-04053 | May 4, 2026 | Same schedule; discovery rulings Sept. 30 and Oct. 2, 2026 | Summary judgment briefs from Dec. 11, 2026; trial May 24, 2027 |
| Elsevier v. Meta (publishers) | May 5, 2026 | Meta answered July 13, 2026 | — |
| Sullivan v. Meta (proposed class of textbook authors), No. 3:26-cv-06793 | July 2, 2026 | Meta answered Sept. 29, 2026; the parties proposed a schedule on Oct. 2, 2026, not yet ordered | Proposed: class certification and summary judgment heard together on May 25, 2028 |
All in the Northern District of California. The four cases set for May 24, 2027 share one schedule (Chicken Soup Dkt. 143, Sept. 16, 2026); the Sullivan dates are a proposal (Dkt. 86). Court record; the stage descriptions are ours.
Registered works in the catalogs Meta is found or alleged to have downloaded, by collection.
Registrations matched to dated catalog records in our dataset: our estimate, not a court finding, and each match is a candidate to confirm against the Copyright Office record. Law firms can get these as defendant lists.
Hypothetical maximum scenario (statutory ceiling), list by list. Each list counts works (copies, formats, editions and translations of one book count once) with a registration dated before that copying could have begun (17 U.S.C. § 412). These are legal maximums, not estimates: each figure is what the statute would allow if every work were awarded the $150,000 maximum for willful infringement (§ 504(c)(2)), plus costs and attorney’s fees if a court awards them (§ 505). The statute allows one award per work for all of one infringer’s infringements in the case, or one shared award where infringers are jointly and severally liable, and all parts of a compilation or derivative work count as one work (§ 504(c)(1)). So a company’s lists overlap and must not be added together: a book on two of its lists is still one award, and the figures for different companies are not a combined total.
Counted once across all of Meta’s lists: 616,230 works, up to $92.4 billion. Of the 618,350 works on its lists (145,360 on more than one), these have a registration dated before the earliest date Meta’s copying of them could have begun. This, not the sum of the lines above, is the per-company figure.
The lists overlap, so the figures are not added together. None of these figures is a prediction or a valuation: ordinary awards run from $750 to $30,000 per work, the maximum requires a finding of willfulness, a work counts once however many copies were made, matches are candidates to confirm, and whether any work qualifies is for a court.
Meta’s downloads span 2022 to 2024. The free check shows which of our dated snapshots list records under your name; a report sets each edition against Meta’s dates.
Check a name freeSee a sample reportLast reviewed October 3, 2026. Developments are logged on our news page.