Full Breakdown
Federal Judge Denies Meta’s Motion to Dismiss Copyright Lawsuit Over Adult-Video Scraping
6/16/2026, 5:05:49 AM
Alleged Mass Scraping of Adult Content by Meta
Strike 3 Holdings, the owner of the adult-video sites Blacked, Vixen and Tushy, sued Meta Platforms Inc. for allegedly downloading and torrent-seeding its copyrighted videos. The complaint asserts that Meta used a coordinated network of corporate IP addresses to collect the material for training its artificial-intelligence models.
Legal Background and Prior Revelations
Internal Meta emails disclosed in a separate lawsuit that the company had downloaded over 81 terabytes of data from Anna’s Archive, a torrent-indexing service for books, movies, TV shows and porn. The revelations prompted Strike 3 Holdings to file its suit almost a year ago, alleging systematic infringement.
Key Parties
The dispute involves Strike 3 Holdings, the owner of Blacked, Vixen and Tushy; Meta Platforms Inc.; Judge Eumi K. Lee of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California; and Anna’s Archive, the torrent-indexing service.
Evidence and Data
Strike 3’s investigation identified 47 Meta IP addresses that torrent-seeded 2,396 videos 6,008 times between 2018 and 2025. The pattern spanned diverse file types, suggesting keyword-driven collection. On December 15 2022, two IP ranges simultaneously downloaded a list of files whose titles all contained the word “teen,” illustrating coordinated activity.
Official Court Findings
Judge Lee rejected Meta’s motion to dismiss, finding the plaintiff plausibly alleged direct, vicarious and contributory infringement. The court noted that the synchronized use of multiple corporate IP addresses “strains credulity” as the work of independent employees. While Meta argued it had not intended to use the videos for AI training, the judge held intent irrelevant to the copyright violation. Consequently, the motion to dismiss was denied, allowing the case to proceed.
Criticism from Adult Content Creators
The ruling is significant for adult-content creators, who have warned that their material is harvested for AI model training without permission.
Verbatim Quotes
- “On the same day, a Corporate IP Address was used to torrent ‘TeenCurves.22.12.09. Willow.’ The connection between these files is plain: The word ‘teen’ appears in every file name.” — United States District Court decision
- “In sum, Plaintiffs [Strike 3 Holdings] have plausibly alleged that Defendant [Meta] is liable for direct, vicarious, and contributory copyright infringement based on the torrenting of their films,” — Judge Eumi K. Lee
- “Defendant’s motion to dismiss is therefore DENIED.” — Judge Eumi K. Lee
What’s Next
With dismissal barred, the lawsuit will move toward discovery and potentially trial. Both parties may seek settlement, but the decision underscores heightened judicial scrutiny of corporate data-scraping practices for AI development.
