Meta is leveraging a recent Supreme Court ruling on ISP liability to defend against copyright lawsuits over its AI training data torrenting practices. The company filed a statement arguing that the decision, which found ISPs aren't liable for piracy on their networks, should shield it from contributory infringement claims in two ongoing cases.

In one lawsuit, Entrepreneur Media alleges Meta induced copyright infringement by seeding 80 terabytes of pirated works through BitTorrent. Meta contends that knowing how torrenting works doesn't constitute affirmative inducement of infringement. The company argues plaintiffs haven't shown it shared data with specific parties or had knowledge of particular infringing acts.

A federal judge recently allowed a contributory infringement claim to be added to a separate class action case, despite criticizing authors' lawyers for delaying the request. The judge noted the claim's late addition was only possible because Meta had requested schedule alignment between the two cases, linking discovery. Meta plans to file a supplemental brief explaining how the Supreme Court's Cox ruling supports its motion to dismiss, potentially creating a bright line that benefits tech companies accused of torrenting copyrighted material.