Strike 3 Holdings, a firm recognized for creating “high quality,” “feminist,” and “ethical” adult films, has initiated a legal action against Meta in a federal court in California. The lawsuit alleges that Meta has violated its copyright by utilizing its material to train AI models. Submitted in July, the complaint claims that Meta has been torrenting and distributing Strike 3’s videos since 2018. The specifics of the complaint were made public last week.
Strike 3 asserts that Meta intended to gather difficult visual angles, body parts, and continuous scenes, which are uncommon in conventional media, to develop AI “superintelligence” as articulated by Mark Zuckerberg.
Lawyer Christian Waugh, representing Strike 3, asserts that Meta was interested in their content for competitive gains in AI performance and smoothness. The complaint also alleges that Meta BitTorrented and disseminated 2,396 of Strike 3’s protected videos, possibly allowing access to minors due to the absence of age verification on BitTorrent. It is claimed that Meta leveraged Strike 3’s content as a means to download other materials for AI training.
The complaint enumerates titles Meta supposedly acquired from non-pornographic sources such as “Yellowstone,” “Modern Family,” “The Bachelor,” “South Park,” and “Downton Abbey.” It also mentions titles of non–Strike 3 adult videos featuring potentially young actors and topics related to weaponry and other contentious subjects.
Matthew Sag, a law professor at Emory University, cautions that employing adult content for AI training could result in public relations challenges. He highlights the danger of a Meta AI model generating unsuitable content when prompted with innocuous subjects.
The lawsuit indicates that Strike 3 has mechanisms to identify violations, pinpointing Meta’s purported infringements through 47 IP addresses associated with Meta. It demands $350 million in statutory infringement damages.
Meta representative Christopher Sgro responded to WIRED, indicating they are assessing the complaint but maintain that Strike 3’s assertions are incorrect.
Meta’s V-JEPA 2 “world model,” launched in June, was allegedly trained on 1 million hours of “internet video,” a phrase that Strike 3 has criticized for its ambiguity. Mark Zuckerberg has publicly expressed Meta’s aim to enable users with “superintelligence” to improve their lives, a vision that was reiterated during the Meta Connect event.
