Hachette, Macmillan, McGraw‑Hill, Elsevier and Cengage, joined by novelist Scott Turow, filed a class‑action against Meta and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, claiming the company used millions of pirated books to train its Llama AI model. The complaint alleges Zuckerberg personally sanctioned the infringements.

The suit argues that Llama’s ability to replicate authors’ styles and summarize plots threatens book sales, citing works by V.E. Schwab, N.K. Jemisin and Turow himself. Evidence includes Llama’s fabricated replies that it has “been trained on a digital version of the book.”

Publishers seek an order to destroy the illegally acquired copies Meta used and to halt further unlawful activity. The case follows a $1.5 billion settlement with Anthropic and highlights a growing legal push against tech firms exploiting copyrighted content.

Meta’s failure to respond could expose it to significant liability and force a reevaluation of AI training practices across the industry.