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AI copyright news, graded by source

Court rulings, company filings and allegations in the copyright cases against AI companies and pirate libraries, over books, articles, music, images, video and code. Checked for new filings every three hours; items are posted after review, so some appear later. Get these by e-mail · Court filings, free to read

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AllegationOctober 19, 2026Levine v. Meta Platforms, Inc. · N.D. Cal. 3:26-cv-12137

A fifth suit from the same firms: 61 more authors and author companies, led by Paul Levine, sue Meta over shadow-library torrenting and the "Project Vellum" book scanning

On Oct. 19, 2026, the same day as the Winspear, Older, Sheard and Reno complaints, Stris & Maher and Freedman Normand Friedland filed a fifth near-identical suit against Meta in the Northern District of California for 61 plaintiffs led by Paul Levine (59 individuals and two author companies), bringing that day's filings to 292 plaintiffs. The plaintiffs again sue individually rather than as a class. The 53-page complaint alleges that Meta downloaded their books, often by torrenting, from shadow libraries and datasets including LibGen, Z-Library, Anna's Archive and The Pile to train its Llama models, and that from about mid-2025 it bought print books in bulk, scanned and OCR'd them in an operation the complaint calls Project Vellum, and used the text to train its Muse models. Counts: direct infringement from the pirated copies, direct infringement through Project Vellum, contributory infringement through torrenting, and removal of copyright management information under 17 U.S.C. 1202(b)(1). These are allegations; Meta has not yet responded.

Complaint, Levine v. Meta, N.D. Cal. 3:26-cv-12137, Dkt. 1 (Oct. 19, 2026) ↗Docket, Levine v. Meta Platforms, Inc. (CourtListener) ↗

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What the labels mean

Every item says what kind of source it rests on. A court ruling or order is the court's own statement. A company filing is what a defendant says about itself. A government filing is a statement by a government agency that is not a party to the case, such as a statement of interest; it is the government's position, not a ruling. An allegation is what a complaint or motion claims and has not been decided. Reported means press reporting we have not confirmed from the primary document. Summaries are our own; follow the links for the source.

This page is general information, not legal advice. An allegation is not a finding. Whether any of this matters for a particular work or claim is a question for a lawyer.