{"id":86114,"date":"2025-11-16T09:00:44","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T09:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=86114"},"modified":"2025-11-16T09:00:44","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T09:00:44","slug":"tit-for-tat-porn-producers-counter-metas-personal-use-piracy-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=86114","title":{"rendered":"Tit-For-Tat: Porn Producers Counter Meta\u2019s \u201cPersonal Use\u201d Piracy Defense"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"moviegen\"In July, adult content producers Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media filed a copyright infringement lawsuit<\/a> against Meta. <\/p>\n

The complaint accused the tech company of using adult films to assist its AI model training. Similar claims have been made by other rightsholders, including many book authors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This latest case specifically focuses on Meta\u2019s BitTorrent activity. That\u2019s no surprise, as plaintiff Strike 3 is the most active<\/a> copyright litigant in the United States, known for targeting thousands of alleged BitTorrent pirates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meta Wants Lawsuit Dismissed<\/h2>\n

In late October, Meta responded to the allegations by filing a motion to dismiss at a California federal court. Taking a page from the BitTorrent piracy defense playbook, Meta argues that the IP address evidence presented by the plaintiffs is meaningless without context.<\/p>\n

The porn producers had linked numerous Meta IP addresses to unauthorized sharing activity. According to Meta, however, there is no evidence that the alleged activity on its corporate network was centrally orchestrated by the company. In fact, it countered that many alleged downloads predate Meta\u2019s AI training activity.<\/p>\n

In addition to denying the allegations, the tech company offered an alternative explanation. Meta suggested that employees or visitors may have downloaded the pirated videos for personal use.<\/p>\n

\u201c[T]he small number of downloads\u2014roughly 22 per year on average across dozens of Meta IP addresses\u2014is plainly indicative of private personal use, not a concerted effort to collect the massive datasets Plaintiffs allege are necessary for effective AI training,\u201d Meta wrote.<\/p>\n

Porn Producers Counter Personal Use Defense<\/h2>\n

The plaintiffs responded to Meta\u2019s defense this week, characterizing the \u201cpersonal use\u201d explanation as implausible, given the amount of data involved and the piracy patterns they observed. <\/p>\n

\u201cPlaintiffs provide data demonstrating unique patterns of Meta\u2019s piracy suggestive of a centralized algorithm coordinating the infringements. Meta\u2019s excuse that employees must be infringing Plaintiffs\u2019 copyrights for \u2018personal use\u2019 does not fit the facts,\u201d they write. <\/p>\n

The rightsholders point out several download patterns that they believe suggest non-human involvement. Interestingly, these patterns are not linked to their own works, but to those of other rightsholders. <\/p>\n

For example, they highlight data from June 29, 2024, suggesting that Meta\u2019s corporate, residential, and \u201chidden\u201d IP addresses all downloaded multiple different versions of Microsoft Office within hours of each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo reasonable person needs this many versions of a word processing software,\u201d they write.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"ms<\/center><\/p>\n

Additionally, the rebuttal mentions that on April 7, 2024, various IP addresses downloaded content linked to the word \u201corigin\u201d, without any other obvious connection. This includes Dan Brown\u2019s book \u201cOrigin\u201d the game \u201cOrigin Offline Start,\u201d and the 2023 movie \u201cOrigin\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the kind of systematic, hyper-literal search consistent with an algorithm, and not just a person casually searching for files,\u201d the adult companies note. They suggest that downloading data for AI training, as Meta previously admitted in the books lawsuit, is the ultimate goal. <\/p>\n

The \u201cTit-for-Tat\u201d Motive<\/h2>\n

The rightsholders also offer a secondary motive to explain why Meta might want to use its videos as part of the broader AI training scheme. They suggest that the tech giant allegedly used popular adult films as \u2018BitTorrent currency\u2019.<\/p>\n

The companies allege that these downloads would benefit BitTorrent\u2019s reciprocal \u201ctit-for-tat\u201d mechanism. They previously explained in their complaint that this could boost Meta\u2019s other download efforts<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cMeta does not produce popular creative works and thus has no \u2018currency\u2019 for the swarm of peers in the BitTorrent network. As a result, Meta must steal someone else\u2019s cachet to stay in these swarms so that it can download files,\u201d the opposition brief reads.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlaintiffs\u2019 works are ideal. Not only do they serve as unique data for AI training, they are popular both commercially and in the BitTorrent network, ensuring that Meta could stay in swarms and download even more files,\u201d they add. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"tit<\/center><\/p>\n

While this is an interesting argument, our understanding of the BitTorrent protocol is that the reciprocal \u201ctit-for-tat\u201d advantages are limited to single torrent swarms. This means that the \u201ccurrency\u201d benefits do not extend to other downloads in different swarms. We assume that Meta\u2019s legal team will have some thoughts on this as well. <\/p>\n

All in all, the porn producers believe that Meta\u2019s defenses are not up to par. They argue there is sufficient ground to survive a motion to dismiss and move the case forward, so it can be argued on its merits. <\/p>\n

\u201cMeta\u2019s Motion is an attempt to thwart the protections Congress enacted in the Copyright Act. Respectfully, Plaintiffs simply ask for their day in court and ask this Court to deny the Motion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n

A copy of the opposition brief Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media filed in response to Meta\u2019s motion to dismiss is available here (pdf)<\/a>. A hearing on the motion to dismiss is scheduled for January 21, 2026.<\/p>\n

From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n

Powered by WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In July, adult content producers Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Meta. The complaint accused the tech company of using adult films to assist its AI model training. Similar claims have been made by other rightsholders, including many book authors. This latest case specifically focuses on Meta\u2019s BitTorrent activity. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torrent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/86115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}