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Judge says evidence shows Zuckerberg involved in AI

training

decisions

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Prominent litigator David Boies joins authors' legal team

By Blake Brittain

Sept 25 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms ( META ) has lost a

bid to block a group of U.S. authors from questioning Meta CEO

Mark Zuckerberg in a lawsuit accusing the company of misusing

copyrighted books to train its artificial intelligence systems.

Zuckerberg's deposition is justified based on evidence that

he was directly involved in Meta's AI-training decisions, U.S.

Magistrate Judge Thomas Hixson in San Francisco said on Tuesday.

The lawsuit was filed against Meta last year by a group of

authors including comedian Sarah Silverman. It alleges that the

company infringed their copyrights by using their books to train

AI language models. The writers have also brought a similar,

ongoing case against Microsoft ( MSFT )-backed OpenAI.

U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, who is presiding over

the Meta case, separately allowed prominent litigator David

Boies and other attorneys from his firm Boies Schiller Flexner

to join the authors' legal team on Tuesday.

Chhabria had criticized the authors' lead attorney Joseph

Saveri about the handling of the case during a Friday

conference, according to the court's docket, warning against

proceeding without "a newly constituted team."

Saveri said in a statement on the Boies firm's addition that

he "look forward to joining our collective expertise and

experience to continue to prosecute this novel, important case

to a successful conclusion."

He declined to comment on the Zuckerberg deposition.

Spokespeople and an attorney for Meta did not immediately

respond to a request for comment on the orders on Wednesday.

Several groups of copyright owners including writers, visual

artists and music publishers have sued major tech companies over

the unauthorized use of their work to train generative AI

systems. The companies have argued that their AI training is

protected by the copyright doctrine of fair use, and that the

lawsuits threaten the burgeoning AI industry.

Meta asked the court for an order barring the authors from

deposing Zuckerberg in their case and said they lacked "any

substantiation for their belief that Mr. Zuckerberg has any

special knowledge of this dispute."

But Hixson said on Tuesday that the authors provided

evidence that Zuckerberg was "the chief decision maker and

policy setter for Meta's Generative AI branch and the

development of the large language models at issue in this

action."

The case is Kadrey v. Meta Platforms Inc ( META ), U.S. District

Court for the Northern District of California, No.

3:23-cv-03417.

For the authors: Joseph Saveri of the Joseph Saveri Law

Firm; Matthew Butterick; and David Boies of Boies Schiller &

Flexner

For Meta: Bobby Ghajar of Cooley

Read more:

Sarah Silverman sues Meta, OpenAI for copyright infringement

US judge trims AI copyright lawsuit against Meta

(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington)