Judge Chhabria is reviewing Meta's attorney-client communications under the crime-fraud exception. Yikes.

Is there evidence Meta committed criminal copyright infringement under 506(a)(1)?

The Kadrey v. Meta lawsuit is the AI copyright case to watch.

Judge Chhabria just ruled that Meta has to submit documents that it claimed were protected by attorney-client privilege for the Judge’s in-camera review by this Friday, 5 pm. Why? Because David Boies’s law firm has made a prima facie showing that those communications might involve either a crime or a fraud.

David Boies’s law firm uncovered evidence that Meta employees used torrent file sharing to download the controversial dataset LibGen, consisting of unauthorized copies of books. But, apparently, as either a custom or condition of using the peer-to-peer torrent network, Meta had to allow “seeding” of the same files with others on the network.So, apparently, Meta wasn’t just downloading the dataset of books, they may have been sharing it (aka seeding) with third parties (though no figures on how much, if any, have been identified by the briefing).

Judge Chhabria ruled: “But even taking a narrower view—that the exception applies only to criminal or fraudulent conduct—in camera review is appropriate here. At a minimum, the plaintiffs have shown that the crime-fraud exception could apply to Meta’s alleged distribution (by seeding) of copyrighted material, and that in camera review might reveal evidence to establish that it does. Review might also reveal evidence that relates to willfulness more generally. See 17 U.S.C. § 506(a)(1).”

Section 506(a)(1) is criminal copyright infringement. Yikes!

Seeding may prove to be Meta’s undoing.

To download Judge Chhabria’s order, click here.