Judge Allows Strike 3’s Copyright Case Against Meta Over Torrenting Adult Videos

A federal judge denied Meta’s bid to dismiss Strike 3 Holdings’ lawsuit, allowing claims that Meta coordinated torrenting of Strike 3’s adult videos to train its AI models to proceed. Evidence shows 47 Meta IP addresses torrented thousands of Strike 3 videos (about 81 terabytes) via Anna’s Archive from 2018–2025, with files having coordinated naming patterns. The court rejected Meta’s argument that only rogue employees were involved and held that the act of torrenting itself violated copyright, enabling direct, vicarious, and contributory infringement claims. The ruling signals potential liability for platforms that scrape copyrighted adult content for AI training.