Gerry Adams, the former Sinn Féin president, has said he is considering legal action against Meta after discovering that several of his books may have been used without permission to train the tech giant’s artificial intelligence models.
Adams claims that at least seven of his titles were included in material scraped from the web to develop Meta’s large language model, Llama. “Meta has used many of my books without my permission,” he said. “I have placed the issue in the hands of my solicitor.”
Sinn Féin confirmed that the titles in question include his memoir Before the Dawn, the prison chronicle Cage Eleven, Hope and History – his reflections on the Northern Ireland peace process – along with a cookbook, a short story collection, and other works.
The news comes amid mounting global pressure on Meta from authors and publishing industry figures, who accuse the company of using pirated works to power its AI tools without seeking consent or offering compensation.
In January, a group of leading US authors filed a lawsuit claiming Meta executives sanctioned the use of Library Genesis (LibGen), a “shadow library” of more than 7.5 million books, many believed to be pirated, to train its Llama model.
The plaintiffs include award-winning writers such as Ta-Nehisi Coates, Jacqueline Woodson, Junot Díaz and Sarah Silverman, who argue that Meta’s use of copyrighted material constitutes theft.
Following a searchable database of LibGen titles republished by The Atlantic, dozens of authors, including Kate Mosse and Tracy Chevalier, have identified their works within it and joined protests outside Meta’s London HQ. The Society of Authors (SoA) has now asked Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy to summon Meta executives to Parliament.
“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,” said SoA chair Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin.
Author and broadcaster Richard Osman weighed in, stating on X:
“Copyright law is not complicated. If you want to use an author’s work you need to ask for permission. If you use it without permission, you’re breaking the law. It’s so simple.”
In response, 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.”
Meta launched Llama, its open-source large language model, last July. Like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, it is trained on vast datasets and underpins tools such as chatbots and content generators.
Adams, now 76, is a prolific writer and one of Ireland’s most recognisable political figures. He served as MP for Belfast West and TD for Louth, leading Sinn Féin from 1983 to 2018. His literary output spans memoir, fiction, political essays and light-hearted titles such as My Little Book of Tweets.
According to the BBC, other Northern Irish authors whose work appears in the LibGen database include Anna Burns, Booker Prize-winning author of Milkman, Jan Carson, Lynne Graham and Deric Henderson.
As the AI industry faces increased scrutiny over data ethics and copyright, Meta may soon find itself at the centre of a growing number of legal challenges on both sides of the Atlantic.
