Meta is Stealing Your Book To Train Their AI: A Discussion on AI, Pirated Books, & What You Can Do // The writing community has been in shambles since it was recently revealed how Meta has been using pirated books to train their AI model, Llama 3. Meta wanted their AI model to compete with ChatGPT, but they needed data to train it. How do they get data fast and free? They decided the best place to go was LibGen, one of the largest book pirating websites out there, with 7.5 million books in its database. This brings so many things to question. Is using copywritten work to train AI legal? How can you prevent your book from being pirated? Is any type of AI ethical? Is a book you've written on LibGen? If Meta used your book to train their AI, what can you do as an author? This video only skims the surface of the issue, but let's get to talking.
Links/Articles Mentioned:
Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI:
Send a Letter to AI Companies Telling Them They Do Not Have the Right to Use Your Work:
Reach out to Emily D. Baker to cover this case:
The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem:
DOES TRAINING AI VIOLATE COPYRIGHT LAW?:
Meta’s Massive AI Training Book Heist: What Authors Need to Know:
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Mandi Lynn published her first novel when she was seventeen. The author of multiple books, Mandi spends her days continuing to write and creating YouTube videos to help other writers achieve their dreams of seeing their books published. Mandi is the owner of Stone Ridge Books, a company that works to help authors bring their books to life through cover design and digital book marketing. She is also the creator of The Book Launch Planner, a planner designed to help authors publish and market their books. When she’s not creating, you can find Mandi exploring her backyard or getting lost in the woods.
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Has your book been pirated on LibGen? Find out here: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/search-libgen-data-set/682094/
thanks for this
The DB in the Atlantic showed 37 of my books were found 🤬. And another 100 from books in a series I created (and get royalties from) but did not personally author. But I was generally ok with pirating (which was impossible to stop… a new site/pirated version of my first book would pop up each day). My publisher (O’Reilly, this is tech non-fiction) always said that for most authors, “lack of exposure” was a far bigger problem than any possible sales list to pirates, and that in a way pirates were unpaid “marketing”, that could lead to sales later, etc. I still believe that, BUT… we did NOT see THIS happening. And earlier LLMs have already been known to spit out complete scenarios/examples I spent weeks designing, in response to a user prompt. With zero attribution of course. This is horrifying and disheartening to me. AI has the potential to be a massive force for good in healthcare, medical science, etc. But this? Destroying the heart and soul of creative human work?
It’s wild that so many authors and people who discuss self publishing, also support AI.
The “writers” who support AI are actually talentless hacks who couldn’t produce anything without generative AI. The use of this technology allows them to make some money by publishing poorly written garbage.
They pirated 9 of my books to train their AI with. My book $ goes to my parents funeral fund. I’m a disabled indie author and that is jacked up for them to do man.
I’m 66, and I tell you this because, in my lifetime, I have seen society take the easy route to obtain any goal. Such as making change at a cash register, cashiers can’t think for themselves or do simple math; they trust and look at an LED screen. Our personal choices of who to date (AI) data and word search, nobody reads anymore? Everywhere you turn, people are glued to their phones (AI). Millions of new books and movies are AI-generated. Good for you for writing the old-school way.
14 of MY BOOKS! That’s almost all of them. I’m devastated! I make barely enough to sustain my writing, and now this. I’m beside myself.
Like “THEY” don’t know i can’t afford to protect myself against them
Ugh, that sucks! I’m really sorry this happened to you. My books were pirated too. I don’t know if it’s on LibGen, though. At least you’re not alone? 🙂 We authors shall have to stick together!!!
It deeply saddens me to see so many of my fellow authors have had work stolen.
I know it’s too late but there are steps that can be taken to hopefully protect future thefts.
In Settings, there is an option called Privacy Settings. Here there is a message from @meta, there is an option to object.
If you write a message to @meta highlighting that you wish for your work, and all work connected to you/your name/ content be excluded from AI training. They should message back saying that in future they will not include your work. I hope this helps. X
I can not understand why people pirate books. I would never go to a person and put out something from her or his bag. I mean, where’s the difference?? Stealing is stealing.
The fact that I got a Chat GPT advertisement on this video is CRAZY
what i find more crazy is you are on youtube without adblocker
SAME! I could not have pushed SKIP faster. Not today satan
I wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon had already been doing this.
POSSIBLE REMEDY: Legal Eagle launches class action on behalf of millions of authors??!!
What stands out to me is our inability to opt out of inclusion in any particular LLM’s data set and discover (in most cases) whether our work has been used to train AI. This in itself speaks to intent.
Ok question. How do you keep copy editors from using AI to do the editing work on your book if you do not want that? Looks to me like many copy editors are using AI and they are just uploading contents into it to make their jobs easier.
Deep research before picking an editor. Definitely don’t just pick any editor. Look at testimonials, ask questions, get a sample edit done. Also insist that it’s in your contract. Likely an editor that’s been doing it for a long time isn’t using AI because they were doing it long before AI was even available.
@@latesummer93 Thank you
The things that scares me the most is the demoralisation and loss of value of craft and hard work. Everything that is of value takes effort, whether it’s a relationship, a meaningful story or a beautiful painting. AI devalues humanity.
And…yes! My book THE TIME DECEIVER was there! Thanks for the heads-up.
Best,
Gerard Denza
The reason why so many books have been pirated is thanks to KU. Amazon did nothing (even their DRM) to stop it. I know authors who sell thousands of books a month but don’t do KU and none of their books are pirated. Guess the cheapskates don’t want to pay for it.
At this point with Amazon’s behaviour of late, licensing aka renting books like a library but charging royalites, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been allowed to happen, so this point in time could happen – ie, books used for Ai. Who uses Ai. Amazon.
Also, if your library doesn’t have the book you want to read, most libraries have ways to suggest a purchase! I’ve done that several times and they’ve bought two I suggested.
Never worried about pirating because those people were never going to buy my books, but a massive company making tons of money stealing them to train AI? Yeah that’s a massive problem.
I see what you mean about D2D. Their stock answer to questions seems to boil down to ‘”pupil, meditation”.
Then you’re “rude” if you still don’t get it and they threaten to refuse publishing your book.
We should be pressuring our elective representatives to pass legislation to pass laws that protects artists and authors from AI.