Judge Orders Meta to Name Everyone Who Approved Shadow Library Downloads
Meta's defense that data decisions were made by team consensus did not survive the first test, and the court is now pressing for names and for an account of downloaded works the company never trained on.
Reporting from 1 source: GIGAZINE.
A US magistrate judge ordered Meta on October 19, 2026 to identify every person involved in decisions to obtain pirated books from shadow libraries and to use BitTorrent. Judge Thomas Hixson rejected Meta's argument that consensus team decisions excused it from naming individuals. Meta must also explain how it handled the plaintiff's works that were downloaded but never used for training.
The order grew out of a discovery request from Entrepreneur Media, which is suing Meta over copyright and asked for "all persons who made, approved, or authorized the decision to obtain the shadow library datasets." Meta named some individuals but drew back from naming the executives who approved torrent use, saying such calls are often made by team consensus.
Judge Thomas Hixson was not persuaded: if a team made the decision, the court wants everyone on the team, and Meta must also say who joined the discussions before torrents were used and who directed or approved the April 2024 downloads. The judge further faulted Meta for leaving unanswered how it handled the plaintiff's works that were downloaded but never used for training.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.