In one of the AI lawsuits faced by Meta, the company stands accused of distributing pirated books. The authors who filed the class-action lawsuit allege that Meta shared books from the shadow library LibGen with third parties via BitTorrent. Meta, however, says that it took precautions to prevent 'seeding' content. In addition, the company clarifies that there is nothing 'independently illegal' about torrenting.

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[–] Rivalarrival 37 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Has anyone in the US ever been busted for downloading from a direct download portal?

Nobody in the US has ever been busted on copyright grounds for downloading anything, regardless of source. The law does not provide for enforcement against downloading; only uploading.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 12 points 1 day ago

No, but even a baseless civil suit costs a lot of time and money to fight.

[–] quirzle@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's what I thought. I don't think their defense succeeding here really gets us anything new.

[–] Rivalarrival 14 points 1 day ago

It doesn't get us anything new. It does put a big, gaping hole in the FUD that has been spread about the supposed "illegality" of downloading.