Elsevier, four other publishers, and Scott Turow bring a class action against Meta Platforms over Llama training data

The complaint

Elsevier Inc., et al. v. Meta Platforms, Inc. and Mark Zuckerberg was filed May 5, 2026 in the Southern District of New York as No. 1:26-cv-03689, a 65-page class action complaint with a jury demand. The plaintiffs are five publishers, Elsevier, Cengage, Hachette, Macmillan, and McGraw Hill, together with author Scott Turow and his company S.C.R.I.B.E., Inc. It names Meta Platforms, Inc. and Mark Zuckerberg, whom the complaint describes as Meta's founder, chairman, CEO, and controlling shareholder. The complaint remains the operative pleading; Meta answered it on July 13, 2026.

The class and the works

The proposed class, under Rule 23(b)(2) and (b)(3), covers legal or beneficial owners of registered copyrights in books with an ISBN or journal articles with a DOI or ISSN that Meta, without authorization, reproduced by torrenting or copying web scrapes, distributed while torrenting, or reproduced in developing or training a Llama model. It is limited to works registered within five years of publication and before Meta's copying, or within three months of publication. As examples, the complaint lists 27 registered sample works: five from each publisher, including textbooks, novels, and scientific journal articles, and three novels by Turow, one of which is also a Hachette sample. Exhibit A lists a Copyright Office registration number for each sample work. The Copyright Office records for two of them, TX 8-935-153 (Calculus: Early Transcendentals, 9th edition) and TX 7-517-396 (the Cancer Genetics issue containing a listed article), name Cengage Learning, Inc. and Elsevier Inc. as claimants.

What it alleges

The plaintiffs plead matters other than those relating to themselves on information and belief. The complaint alleges that Meta copied the Common Crawl web dataset and the CCNet and C4 subsets of it to train Llama, and that those datasets contain pirated books from sites including Z-Library and OceanofPDF as well as paywalled works scraped from subscription libraries. It alleges that Meta torrented copyrighted works from Anna's Archive, LibGen, Sci-Hub, and other pirate sites, and that its torrenting also distributed copies to other users. It alleges that Meta made further copies in training, removed or altered copyright notices and other copyright management information to conceal its sources, and that Zuckerberg personally authorized and encouraged the conduct. It also alleges market harm through displaced sales, lost licensing, and model outputs that substitute for the works.

The claims and relief

Counts I to III plead direct infringement of the reproduction right under 17 U.S.C. 106(1) and 501 by torrenting, web scraping, and training, against Meta and Zuckerberg. Count IV pleads direct infringement of the distribution right under 17 U.S.C. 106(3) by torrenting. Count V pleads, in the alternative, contributory infringement by Zuckerberg. Count VI pleads removal or alteration of copyright management information against Meta under 17 U.S.C. 1202(b). The plaintiffs ask for class certification, an injunction, statutory damages under 17 U.S.C. 504(c) and 1203(c) or actual damages and profits, an accounting of the training materials and methods for the Llama models, destruction of infringing copies under 17 U.S.C. 503(b), and fees.

Transfer and current posture

On September 25, 2026 Judge P. Kevin Castel granted motions by Meta and Zuckerberg to transfer the case to the Northern District of California under 28 U.S.C. 1404(a), applying the first-filed rule because six actions with substantially similar claims against Meta were pending there, and concluding that the presumption in favor of transfer had not been overcome. The Southern District of New York docket records the electronic transfer that day and the Northern District of California's acknowledgment of receipt, which gave the case No. 3:26-cv-11415 with a filing date there of October 5, 2026. On October 22, 2026 the Northern District of California entered an order relating the case to No. 3:23-cv-03417, and the case was reassigned to Judge Vince Chhabria. At a case management conference on October 29, 2026, held together with the related cases, Judge Chhabria directed the parties in this case and two other related cases to file a stipulation proposing a briefing schedule for summary judgment and class certification motions, and set a further case management conference for December 11, 2026.