Entrepreneur Media sues Meta for allegedly using its copyrighted content to train AI models
Publisher accuses tech giant of illegally copying business books and guides to train Llama models; joins growing list of copyright lawsuits against AI companies.
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Entrepreneur Media, the publisher of the well-known Entrepreneur magazine, has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Meta Platforms in a California federal court, accusing the tech giant of unlawfully using its proprietary business content to train artificial intelligence systems.
In its complaint filed on November 6, the Santa Ana–based media company alleged that Meta copied its business strategy books, professional development guides, and instructional materials to train its Llama large language models (LLMs)- which power AI tools capable of generating articles, advice, and content similar to Entrepreneur’s offerings.
“Rather than licensing or even purchasing copies of Entrepreneur's work, Meta- one of the largest, most well-known, and wealthiest corporations in the world- chose to simply take it,” said Entrepreneur CEO Ryan Shea in a statement.
“Stealing is not innovation, and taking decades of copyrighted works to train artificial intelligence is still stealing.”
The publisher, which has been producing business magazines and books for over five decades, claims Meta’s actions amount to unauthorized copying of hundreds of its copyrighted works, enabling AI-generated outputs that directly compete with Entrepreneur’s original content, according to a Reuters report.
Entrepreneur Media has sought unspecified monetary damages and a court injunction to prevent further use of its copyrighted material.
The case adds to a growing wave of legal challenges against major AI developers, including Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, by authors, publishers, and media houses alleging the unlawful scraping and use of copyrighted material for training generative AI models.
Meta, like other tech companies, has defended its practices under the “fair use” doctrine in U.S. copyright law, arguing that AI training transforms the data into new and non-competing outputs.
