Apple Hit With Copyright Class Action Over Pirated Books Dataset

Apple Inc. became the latest technology giant to face a putative class action copyright complaint over use of databases of pirated books to train its generative AI model.

Authors Grady Hendrix and Jennifer Roberson accused Apple of training Apple Intelligence on pirated dataset Books3 in a complaint filed Sept. 5 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California.

Their complaint said Apple discloses that it used a dataset called “RedPajama” for training materials. The dataset’s host, AI library company Hugging Face Inc., noted in information available until April 2024 that the dataset included Books3, according to the ...