Meta has moved to dismiss a lawsuit from adult film company Strike 3 Holdings, which accused the tech giant of illegally downloading pornography to train its AI models. The company argues the downloads were for personal use by individuals, not corporate AI efforts. Meta calls the claims baseless and points to a lack of evidence linking the activity to its operations.
On Monday, Meta filed a motion in a US district court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by Strike 3 Holdings. The suit alleged that Meta used corporate IP addresses to torrent around 2,400 adult films owned by Strike 3, potentially for training an unannounced adult version of its AI model behind Movie Gen. Strike 3 claimed additional downloads occurred via a 'stealth network' of 2,500 hidden IP addresses and sought damages exceeding $350 million.
The downloads in question spanned seven years, beginning in 2018—four years before Meta's research into Multimodal Models and Generative Video started. Meta argued this timeline makes the AI training claim implausible, especially since its terms prohibit generating adult content. 'These claims are bogus,' a Meta spokesperson told Ars Technica.
Meta contended that the activity—about 22 downloads per year, or a few dozen titles intermittently obtained one file at a time—points to 'private personal use' by disparate individuals rather than a concerted corporate effort. The company noted that tens of thousands of employees, contractors, visitors, and third parties access its network daily, making it impossible to attribute the downloads definitively to Meta staff involved in AI. For instance, one alleged case involved a contractor, an automation engineer, downloading content at his father's house; Meta said this showed no ties to the company or AI training.
The 'stealth network' allegation drew particular criticism from Meta, which questioned why it would conceal some downloads while using traceable corporate IPs for others. 'The obvious answer is that it would not do so,' the filing stated, calling Strike 3's theory 'nonsensical and unsupported.' Meta also dismissed any obligation to monitor every download on its global network as overly invasive.
Strike 3, which Meta described as a 'copyright troll' relying on 'guesswork and innuendo,' has two weeks to respond. Meta emphasized its avoidance of adult content in AI: 'We don’t want this type of content, and we take deliberate steps to avoid training on this kind of material,' the spokesperson added.