British authors ‘absolutely sick’ to discover books on ‘shadow library’ allegedly used by Meta to train AI
British authors have told Sky News they felt “absolutely sick” to see their book titles appear in a “shadow library” allegedly used by tech giant Meta to help develop artificial intelligence software.
“It’s my whole life,” said one best-selling novelist. “The thought somebody in Silicon Valley or wherever is taking that work to produce identikit fake AI versions… it’s so upsetting.”
The tool to search the LibGen database was published by The Atlantic last week after court documents filed as part of a lawsuit by US comedian Sarah Silverman and other authors against Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and has a current market value of more than £1trn, were made public earlier this year.
Meta is accused of breaching copyright laws by using LibGen – a prominent so-called “shadow library”, operated anonymously, that allegedly contains millions of pirated copies of books, journal articles and other materials – to develop its AI software. Meta has denied the claim and argues the case should be thrown out.
In a legal document filed earlier this week, the tech company said it did not violate copyright law by downloading books from some parts of LibGen to train its flagship AI system Llama 3, saying it made “fair use” of the material, and that Llama 3 does not “replicate” authors’ works.
In earlier court documents, lawyers for Silverman and the other authors alleged internal communications showed Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg “approved” use of the LibGen dataset despite concerns from some workers.
Author Rowan Coleman has written dozens of novels. Pic: Carolyn Mendelsohn
The Society of Authors (SoA) trade union has described Meta’s alleged behaviour as “appalling” and says the company “needs to compensate the rightsholders of all the works it has been exploiting”.
“It’s every single book I have ever written,” says novelist Rowan Coleman, who has had about 40 books published since her first in 2002, including the Sunday Times bestseller The Memory Book in 2014, and The Bronte Mysteries series under a pen name.
“I felt absolutely sick… I have no way of knowing how much revenue that has cost me. Like most writers, I struggle to pay the bills. I have three jobs, I have children to support and a mortgage to pay. And there are tech billionaires who are profiting from my work and the work of countless other authors as well. How can that be right?”
Meta, Coleman says, allegedly decided to obtain “what they needed cheaply and quickly”.
But financial compensation aside, she says there is a bigger issue. “It’s a threat to this profession even being able to continue to exist. We are, I think, at genuine risk of not having any books for people to actually pirate – at least not any written by humans.”
Owen Cooper and Stephen Graham in Adolescence. Pic: Netflix
Coleman highlights the recent Netflix drama Adolescence, co-written by and starring Stephen Graham, which has been discussed everywhere from US talk shows to UK parliament. “We wouldn’t have that if it wasn’t for writers sitting down and working and grafting for hours.
While JK Rowling, Stephen King and James Patterson may be worth millions, a survey in 2022 found that authors in the UK earned an average median income of about £7,000.
Hannah Doyle, a romcom novelist who is about to publish her fifth novel, The Spa Break, in May, says two of her previous works appear in the LibGen search.
Like Coleman, she has other jobs to supplement her author earnings. Each book takes about a year to complete, she says.
‘It’s David and Goliath’
Author Hannah Doyle is about to publish her fifth novel
“We’re kind of the little people, it’s like David and Goliath,” she says. “How do we stand up for our rights when we’re facing these tech giants worth trillions of pounds?
“This isn’t right, because it’s theft, ultimately. They’re [allegedly] stealing our work and they’re using it to better their AI systems. What’s going to happen to our careers as a result of that?”
Doyle says the situation might be different had authors been approached and offered remuneration.
“I think AI has so many benefits in certain fields,” she says. “For medical research, for example, it’s got the potential to be incredibly useful. What needs to happen is we really need to give it some boundaries before it totally takes over.”
Award-winning writer Damian Barr, whose books also appear to be featured in the database, shared a post on Instagram, writing: “Readers and viewers – because so much TV and film and theatre starts with a book – are being subjected to BILGE generated by machines… creatively and culturally and financially, AI is robbing us all.”
Richard Osman. Pic: Carsten Koall/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images
TV presenter and author Richard Osman, who has had huge success with his Thursday Murder Club series, wrote on X: “Copyright law is not complicated at all. If you want to use an author’s work you need to ask for permission. If you use it without permission you’re breaking the law. It’s so simple. It’ll be incredibly difficult for us, and for other affected industries, to take on Meta, but we’ll have a good go!”
In his article, Atlantic writer Alex Reisner, who created the LibGen search tool, gave the caveats that it is “impossible” to know exactly which parts of LibGen Meta has used and which parts it hasn’t, and the database is “constantly growing”.
His snapshot was created in January 2025, he says, more than a year after the lawsuit says it was accessed by the tech giant, so some titles that appear now would not have been available to download at that point.
The SoA is urging authors in the UK to write to Meta, as well as to their local MPs.
“Rather than ask permission and pay for these copyright-protected materials, AI companies are knowingly choosing to steal them in the race to dominate the market,” chief executive Anna Ganley said in a statement.
“This is shocking behaviour by big tech that is currently being enabled by governments who are not intervening to strengthen and uphold current copyright protections.”
A Meta spokesperson told Sky News in a statement that the company “has developed transformational GenAI open source LLMs that are powering incredible innovation, productivity, and creativity for individuals and companies”.
The statement continued: “Fair use of copyrighted materials is vital to this. We disagree with plaintiffs’ assertions, and the full record tells a different story. We will continue to vigorously defend ourselves and to protect the development of GenAI for the benefit of all.”
The US lawsuit
Comedian Sarah Silverman is one of the authors suing Meta in the US. Pic: AP
Authors including comedian Silverman, Richard Kadrey and Ta-Nehisi Coates filed their class-action lawsuit against Meta in California in 2023.
They have accused the tech firm of illegally downloading digital copies of their books and using them – without their consent or offering compensation – to train AI.
The controversy surrounding LibGen is part of a wider debate about AI and copyright law. In the US, the Authors Guild says legal action is under way against other AI companies for allegedly using pirated books, as well as Meta.
The organisation has advised authors that if their books have been used by Meta, they are automatically included in the Kadrey vs Meta class action, the lawsuit involving Silverman and other authors, “without needing to take any immediate action”.
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Separately in 2023, the Authors Guild and 17 authors filed a class-action suit against OpenAI in New York for alleged copyright infringement. The named plaintiffs include John Grisham, George RR Martin and Jodi Picoult.
The issue was also one of the driving forces behind the strikes in Hollywood in 2023. But not everyone in the creative industries is against it.
Last year, publisher Harper Collins reached an agreement with an unnamed technology company to allow “limited use of select non-fiction backlist titles” for training AI models.
And in 2023, award-winning crime author Ajay Chowdhury told Sky News he was embracing the technology.
AI law in the UK – what is happening?
A consultation on AI copyright law in the UK ended in February. Under the plans, an exemption to copyright would be created for training AI, so tech firms would not need a licence to use copyrighted material – and creators would need to opt out to prevent their work from being used.
A government spokesperson said at the time that the UK’s current regime for copyright and AI was “holding back the creative industries, media and AI sector from realising their full potential – and that cannot continue”.
No changes will be made “until we are absolutely confident we have a practical plan that delivers each of our objectives, including increased control for rights holders to help them easily license their content, enabling lawful access to material to train world-leading AI models in the UK, and building greater transparency over material being used”, the spokesperson said.
But plenty of authors and others in the creative industries are not convinced.
“It just leaves the door open for so much exploitation of people’s rights, people’s data and their work,” says Coleman. “I would really urge the government to think again about this and to protect what is a jewel in the crown of British cultural identity – to do the right thing.”
UK
Zhenhao Zou: More than 20 new potential victims come forward after ‘prolific’ rapist jailed for assaulting 10 women
Another 23 female potential victims have reported that they may have been raped by Zhenhao Zou – the Chinese PhD student detectives believe may be one of the country’s most prolific sex offenders.
The Metropolitan Police launched an international appeal after Zou, 28, was convicted of drugging and raping 10 women following a trial at the Inner London Crown Court last month.
Detectives have not confirmed whether the 23 people who have come forward add to their estimates that more than 50 other women worldwide may have been targeted by the University College London student.
Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth said: “We have victims reaching out to us from different parts of the globe.
“At the moment, the primary places where we believe offending may have occurred at this time appears to be both in England, here in London, and over in China.”
Metropolitan Police commander Kevin Southworth
Zou lived in a student flat in Woburn Place, near Russell Square in central London, and later in a flat in the Uncle building in Churchyard Row in Elephant and Castle, south London.
Read more: How a student described as ‘smart and charming’ was unmasked as a prolific sexual predator
He had also been a student at Queen’s University Belfast, where he studied mechanical engineering from 2017 until 2019. Police say they have not had any reports from Belfast but added they were “open-minded about that”.
“Given how active and prolific Zou appears to have been with his awful offending, there is every prospect that he could have offended anywhere in the world,” Mr Southworth said.
“We wouldn’t want anyone to write off the fact they may have been a victim of his behaviour simply by virtue of the fact that you are from a certain place.
“The bottom line is, if you think you may have been affected by Zhenhao Zou or someone you know may have been, please don’t hold back. Please make contact with us.”
Pic: Met Police
Zou used hidden or handheld cameras to record his attacks, and kept the footage and often the women’s belongings as souvenirs.
He targeted young, Chinese women, inviting them to his flat for drinks or to study, before drugging and assaulting them.
Zou was convicted of 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim, as well as three counts of voyeurism, 10 counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one count of false imprisonment and three counts of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.
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Moment police arrest rapist student
Mr Southworth said: “Of those 10 victims, several were not identified so as we could be sure exactly where in the world they were, but their cases, nevertheless, were sufficient to see convictions at court.
“There were also, at the time, 50 videos that were identified of further potential female victims of Zhenhao Zou’s awful crimes.
“We are still working to identify all of those women in those videos.
“We have now, thankfully, had 23 victim survivors come forward through the appeal that we’ve conducted, some of whom may be identical with some of the females that we saw in those videos, some of whom may even turn out to be from the original indicted cases.”
Mr Southworth added: “Ultimately, now it’s the investigation team’s job to professionally pick our way through those individual pieces of evidence, those individual victims’ stories, to see if we can identify who may have been a victim, when and where, so then we can bring Zou to justice for the full extent of his crimes.”
Mr Southworth said more resources will be put into the investigation, and that detectives are looking to understand “what may have happened without wishing to revisit the trauma, but in a way that enables [the potential victims] to give evidence in the best possible way.”
The Metropolitan Police is appealing to anyone who thinks they may have been targeted by Zou to contact the force either by emailing survivors@met.police.uk, or via the major incident public portal on the force’s website.
An 11-year-old girl who went missing after entering the River Thames has been named as Kaliyah Coa.
An “extensive search” has been carried out after the incident in east London at around 1.30pm on Monday.
Police said the child had been playing during a school inset day and entered the water near Barge House Causeway, North Woolwich.
A recovery mission is now said to be under way to find Kaliyah along the Thames, with the Metropolitan Police carrying out an extensive examination of the area.
Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope in North Woolwich leading into the Thames
Chief Superintendent Dan Card thanked members of the public and emergency teams who responded to “carry out a large-scale search during a highly pressurised and distressing time”.
He also confirmed drone technology and boats were being used to “conduct a thorough search over a wide area”.
He added: “Our specialist officers are supporting Kaliyah’s family through this deeply upsetting time and our thoughts go out to all those impacted by what has happened.”
“Equally we appreciate this has affected the wider community who have been extremely supportive. You will see extra officers in the area during the coming days.”
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On Monday, Kerry Benadjaoud, a 62-year-old resident from the area, said she heard of the incident from her next-door neighbour, who “was outside doing her garden and there was two little kids running, and they said ‘my friend’s in the water'”.
When she arrived at the scene with a life ring, a man told her he had called the police, “but he said at the time he could see her hands going down”.
Barge House Causeway is a concrete slope that goes directly into the River Thames and is used to transport boats.
Residents pointed out that it appeared to be covered in moss and was slippery.
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