Strike 3 Holdings just dropped a bombshell lawsuit against Meta, alleging the tech giant has been torrenting and seeding thousands of copyrighted adult videos since 2018 to train its AI models. The $350 million federal case, with newly unsealed details, could set a massive precedent for how AI companies source training data - and it's already exposing the murky world of corporate data scraping behind the AI boom.
The adult entertainment industry just fired its biggest shot yet in the AI copyright wars. Strike 3 Holdings, which produces what it calls 'feminist' and 'ethical' adult content, is demanding $350 million from Meta in a federal lawsuit that paints a damning picture of how the social media giant allegedly built its AI empire.
According to court documents unsealed last week, Meta didn't just passively scrape Strike 3's content - it actively torrented and seeded 2,396 copyrighted videos since 2018, using BitTorrent protocols typically associated with piracy. The company's infringement detection systems tracked the alleged violations across 47 distinct Meta-affiliated IP addresses.
'They have an interest in getting our content because it can give them a competitive advantage for the quality, fluidity, and humanity of the AI,' Strike 3 attorney Christian Waugh told reporters. The lawsuit argues Meta specifically targeted adult content because it contains visual angles, body positioning, and extended uninterrupted scenes that mainstream movies and TV rarely provide - exactly what's needed to train sophisticated video AI models.
But the adult content was just the tip of the iceberg. Exhibits in the case reveal Meta allegedly torrented everything from Yellowstone and Modern Family episodes to weapons training videos like '3D Gun Print' and 'Gun Digest Shooter's Guide to the AR-15.' The list even includes content with potentially underage performers and, ironically, a video called 'Intellectual Property Rights in Cyberspace.'
The timing couldn't be worse for Meta. Just this week at Meta Connect, Mark Zuckerberg doubled down on the company's 'superintelligence' vision, promising to put AI power directly into users' hands through products like the company's smart glasses. Meta's V-JEPA 2 'world model,' released in June, was trained on one million hours of what researchers vaguely called 'internet video' - a term the lawsuit argues was deliberately unspecific.
