The former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams is considering legal action against Meta because it may have used his books to train artificial intelligence.
Adams said the tech company included at least seven of his books in a vast trawl of copyright material to develop its AI systems. “Meta has used many of my books without my permission. I have placed the issue in the hands of my solicitor,” he said.
Sinn Féin said in a statement on Wednesday that the titles included its former leader’s autobiography, Before the Dawn; a prison memoir, Cage Eleven; reflections on Northern Ireland’s peace process, Hope and History; and other memoirs, a cookbook and a short story collection.
Adams is the latest author to join a backlash against the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
A group of authors made a US court filing in January alleging that Meta had approved the use of Library Genesis, a “shadow library” known as LibGen, that contains more than 7.5m books.
The group, which includes Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jacqueline Woodson, Andrew Sean Greer, Junot Díaz and the comedian Sarah Silverman, claimed that company executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, were aware LibGen was a database believed to contain pirated material when they sanctioned its use.
The Atlantic magazine republished a searchable database of titles contained in LibGen last month, which led to many authors identifying works Meta may have used to train its AI system, Llama.
Authors including Kate Mosse and Tracy Chevalier, and other publishing industry professionals, protested outside Meta’s London headquarters last week and sent a letter to its US headquarters.
The chair of the Society of Authors, Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin, said Meta’s actions were shocking and devastating for writers. “A book can take a year or longer to write. Meta has stolen books so that their AI can reproduce creative content, potentially putting these same authors out of business.” The SoA has asked the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, to summon Meta executives to parliament.
The novelist Richard Osman said copyright law was not complicated. “If you want to use an author’s work you need to ask for permission,” he posted on X. “If you use it without permission you’re breaking the law. It’s so simple.”
A Meta spokesperson said: “We respect third-party intellectual property rights and believe our use of information to train AI models is consistent with existing law.”
The company launched its open-source AI app last July. Llama is a large language model, or LLM, similar to Open AI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. LLMs underpin AI tools such as chatbots and are trained on vast datasets that enable them to mimic human language and computer coding.
Adams, 76, who led Sinn Féin from 1983 to 2018, and denies ever having been a member of the IRA, served as MP for Belfast West and represented Louth in the Dáil, Ireland’s parliament. He is a prolific author who has written fiction, reminiscences, history, political tracts and quirkier offerings, such as My Little Book of Tweets.
Other Northern Ireland authors in the LibGen database include Jan Carson, Lynne Graham, Deric Henderson, and Anna Burns, who won the Booker for her novel Milkman, the BBC reported.
