TNB Tech Minute: Publishers Sue Meta Over Alleged Use of Copyrighted Works in AI Training

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Julie Chang· Host0:29

[outro music] Here is your afternoon TNB Tech Minute for Tuesday, May fifth. I'm Julie Chang for The Wall Street Journal. A group of publishers have filed a class action lawsuit against Meta. They allege the tech giant illegally used their copyrighted works to source and train its AI platform, Llama. Plaintiffs include Cengage Learning, Hachette, Macmillan, and McGraw. They claim Meta accessed millions of books and journal articles from pirating sites and also removed copyright management information to hide its sources and enable unauthorized use. A Meta spokesperson said the company plans to fight the suit, adding that courts have found training AI on copyrighted material can qualify as fair use. PayPal plans to cut a fifth of its staff, roughly forty-seven hundred positions, over the next two to three years. That's according to a person familiar with the matter. The eliminations are part of the company's new plans to accelerate its adoption of AI and cut costs. The layoffs