The Wrong Argument – Why Authors Lost Against Meta and What Comes Next
Jul 25, 2025
15:53
forum Ask episode
view_agenda Chapters
auto_awesome Transcript
info_circle Episode notes
In a major win for Meta, a federal court recently dismissed a lawsuit brought by prominent authors who claimed their books were illegally used to train the company’s LLaMA models. But the ruling doesn’t give AI companies a free pass—it reveals the roadmap for how a better-prepared copyright plaintiff could win next time.
In this episode of The Briefing, Scott Hervey is joined by his partner Matt Sugarman as they break down:
The background of Kadrey v. Meta
The court’s detailed fair use analysis
A comparison to Bartz v. Anthropic
The “third theory” of market harm that could shape future litigation
The Briefing by Weintraub Tobin 
In a major win for Meta, a federal court recently dismissed a lawsuit brought by prominent authors who claimed their books were illegally used to train the company’s LLaMA models. But the ruling doesn’t give AI companies a free pass—it reveals the roadmap for how a better-prepared copyright plaintiff could win next time.