Kadrey v. Meta: The Llama Fair Use Ruling

Meta won on fair use because the authors never proved market harm. The judge called that a failure of evidence, not a green light, and torrenting claims go on.

SD Frivolous Editorial · Published Nov 9, 2026 · 6 sources

Short answer

In Kadrey v. Meta (N.D. Cal.), Judge Vince Chhabria granted Meta summary judgment on fair use on June 25, 2025 because the authors offered no meaningful evidence of market harm, while stressing the ruling covered only these plaintiffs. As of November 9, 2026, the case is still open on claims that Meta distributed books while torrenting them, an interlocutory appeal was refused, and class discovery has begun.

Editorial illustration for Kadrey v. Meta

Case status at a glance
Caption	Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc.
Court	U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
Case number	3:23-cv-03417-VC
Filed	July 7, 2023
Judge	Vince Chhabria
Status	Open; Meta won partial summary judgment on fair use for training (June 25, 2025); distribution and contributory infringement claims pending
Next date	Further case management conference December 11, 2026
Claims	Copyright infringement (training), unlawful distribution via torrenting, contributory infringement; DMCA claim resolved for Meta

Who is suing and why

Novelist Richard Kadrey, comedian and author Sarah Silverman and other writers sued Meta on July 7, 2023, according to the CourtListener docket. By the summary judgment stage, thirteen authors, described by the court as mostly famous fiction writers, were pressing the claims; the current plaintiff list also includes Ta-Nehisi Coates, Junot Díaz, Andrew Sean Greer and Jacqueline Woodson. They allege that Meta downloaded their books from online shadow libraries and used them to train its Llama large language models.

Judge Chhabria’s June 25, 2025 order (Dkt. 598) recounts that Meta explored licensing books from publishers before turning to shadow libraries, repositories that offer books and articles for free download regardless of copyright. The case was filed as a proposed class action, but no class had been certified when the court ruled on fair use, which is why the judge said the ruling affected only the named authors.

Claims

Training on books

The core claim is that copying the authors’ books into Llama’s training data infringed their reproduction right. The authors offered two market theories: that Llama could reproduce snippets of their books, and that Meta’s copying harmed a market for licensing books as AI training data. Meta argued that training is transformative and that its models do not substitute for the books. The authors also brought a claim under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for removal of copyright management information; the court granted Meta summary judgment on that claim in a separate ruling.

Torrent distribution claim

Meta obtained many books through BitTorrent, a protocol in which downloaders can also upload pieces of files to others. The authors added a claim in November 2024 that Meta unlawfully distributed their works during torrenting, as Judge Chhabria later recounted in a March 2026 order reported by ChatGPT Is Eating the World. That order reluctantly allowed a fourth amended complaint adding a contributory infringement claim tied to torrenting, and noted that Meta had disclosed it would assert fair use against the distribution claim too.

Key rulings

June 2025 summary judgment on fair use

Judge Chhabria found Meta’s use “highly transformative” but held that this does not end the analysis, because under Supreme Court precedent the fourth factor, market effect, is the single most important element of fair use. He rejected both of the authors’ market theories: Llama could not reproduce meaningful portions of their books, and a market for licensing books as training data is not one the authors are entitled to. The theory he found strongest was one the plaintiffs barely argued, market dilution: that a model trained on their books could flood the market with competing works. Because the authors “presented no meaningful evidence on market dilution at all,” the order concludes, the fourth factor could only favor Meta on this record.

The opinion is explicit about its limits. Judge Chhabria wrote that in many circumstances it will be illegal to copy copyright-protected works to train generative AI models without permission. He added that the ruling does not hold Meta’s training lawful, and stands only for the proposition that “these plaintiffs made the wrong arguments and failed to develop a record in support of the right one.” On the downloading question, he held that Meta’s use of shadow libraries could not be assessed wholly apart from the training it served, a point of departure from Bartz v. Anthropic.

Later rulings on the remaining claim

The June 2025 order left the distribution claim for further proceedings. In March 2026, the court granted leave to add the contributory infringement claim but denied the plaintiffs’ request to open class discovery at that time. In June 2026 the plaintiffs asked the court to certify the summary judgment ruling for interlocutory appeal, citing the conflict with Bartz (McKool Smith tracker). Judge Chhabria denied the motion on July 8, 2026, reasoning that a final judgment in one of the Meta cases before him would soon let the Ninth Circuit take up the issues together, according to Mishcon de Reya’s tracker.

At an October 29, 2026 case management conference, the docket minute entry records that the court revoked Boies Schiller’s status as interim class counsel in Kadrey, said it would revisit the appointment, directed the Kadrey parties to begin class discovery, and related several newer author and publisher suits against Meta. No ruling on the merits of the distribution claim has been reported as of November 9, 2026.

How Kadrey differs from Bartz v. Anthropic

The two rulings came two days apart from the same courthouse and reached the same bottom line on training, but they rest on different reasoning. Judge William Alsup in Bartz v. Anthropic, No. 3:24-cv-05417 (N.D. Cal.), treated pirated downloads kept in a permanent library as a separate use that fair use could not excuse, and dismissed market dilution as outside copyright’s concern. Judge Chhabria folded the downloading into the training purpose and made market dilution the potentially decisive harm, missing only for lack of evidence.

Question	Kadrey v. Meta	Bartz v. Anthropic
Training fair use?	Yes, on this record	Yes, “exceedingly transformative”
Pirated downloads	Considered with the training purpose	Not fair use as a library
Market dilution	Valid theory, unproven	Not a cognizable harm
Class	Not certified at ruling; class discovery began October 2026	Certified July 2025
Status, November 9, 2026	Open on distribution claims	Settled for $1.5 billion; final judgment

The practical effect of the split: Anthropic faced a certified class and a trial on piracy, and settled; Meta won the training issue outright against thirteen authors but still faces torrenting claims. Neither ruling binds other courts.

What it means for authors and AI companies

For AI developers, Kadrey is a win with a warning label. The court accepted that training can be transformative, but signalled that a plaintiff with evidence of market dilution could defeat fair use, and that judges should expect to see that evidence. For authors and publishers, the opinion is a roadmap: later complaints against Meta and other developers lead with substitution and dilution arguments. McKool Smith noted that the publishers’ complaint in Elsevier v. Meta puts claims about displaced sales and substitutive outputs front and center.

The ruling also shows how procedure shapes results. Because no class was certified, the June 2025 decision bound only the named authors, and other rightsholders have since filed their own suits that the court is now managing alongside Kadrey. For the doctrine across cases, see fair use in the age of AI.

What this means for you

The Kadrey fair use ruling did not decide whether training on your books is lawful; it decided that thirteen authors failed to prove market harm. Rightsholders weighing their own claims should focus on evidence of substitution and dilution, and on the separate question of how copies were obtained.

What happens next

The court has set a further case management conference for December 11, 2026, with a case management statement due December 4, according to the docket. The same minute entry ordered the plaintiffs in five recently filed individual cases to show cause by December 11 why they should not be dismissed for improper joinder, and set briefing schedules in related cases. Class discovery in Kadrey is under way, interim class counsel will be reconsidered, and the distribution and contributory infringement claims remain to be decided.

An appeal of the June 2025 fair use ruling must wait for a final judgment. Judge Chhabria has said he expects one in at least one of the Meta cases before long, which would put both the Kadrey and Bartz approaches before the Ninth Circuit. This page is general information, not legal advice.

Bottom line

Meta's June 25, 2025 fair use win covers only these authors and turned on missing evidence of market harm, so it is not a blanket approval of training on books. The case continues on claims that Meta distributed books while torrenting them, an interlocutory appeal was refused, and class discovery has begun. The next date is a case management conference on December 11, 2026.

Key facts at a glance. Sources listed below.

What changed

2026-10-29: Case management conference: interim class counsel status revoked, class discovery to begin, related cases ordered; further conference set for December 11, 2026.
2026-07-08: Motion for leave to file an interlocutory appeal of the fair use ruling denied.
2026-03-25: Leave granted to file a fourth amended complaint adding a contributory infringement claim tied to torrenting; class discovery request denied.
2025-06-25: Partial summary judgment for Meta on fair use as to the named plaintiffs' works (Dkt. 598); separate summary judgment for Meta on the DMCA claim.
2023-07-07: Complaint filed in the Northern District of California.

Frequently asked questions

What was the ruling in Kadrey v. Meta?

On June 25, 2025, Judge Vince Chhabria granted Meta partial summary judgment, holding that its use of thirteen authors' books to train Llama was fair use on the record presented, because the authors offered no meaningful evidence of market harm. He also ruled for Meta on a DMCA claim.

Did Meta win the fair use case?

On training, yes, against these plaintiffs. The judge said the ruling does not make Meta's training lawful in general, only that these plaintiffs made the wrong arguments. Claims that Meta distributed books while torrenting them remain open as of November 9, 2026.

Does Kadrey v. Meta apply to other authors?

No. The court stressed that no class had been certified, so the ruling affects only the named authors. A district court decision also does not bind other judges. Other authors and publishers have since filed their own suits against Meta.

How is Kadrey v. Meta different from Bartz v. Anthropic?

Both found training on books to be fair use. Bartz held that keeping pirated copies in a library was not fair use and rejected market dilution as a harm; Kadrey treated the downloads as part of training and called dilution the key, unproven harm. Bartz settled for $1.5 billion; Kadrey is still open.

Sources

Legal disclaimer

This page is journalism and commentary, not legal advice. AI law changes quickly; check the primary sources above and consult qualified counsel for your situation.