A legal action has been initiated by two companies in the adult film sector, alleging that Meta has been illegally torrenting copyrighted adult film material for years to develop its AI models.

The lawsuit was submitted by Strike 3 Holdings, a company focused on pornographic films, and Counterlife Media in a U.S. District Court in California on Friday. They assert that Meta has “willfully and intentionally” violated at least 2,396 copyrighted films since 2018. As reported by TorrentFreak, the firm is the most prolific copyright litigant in the United States and consistently targets BitTorrent pirates.

The complaint argues that Meta downloaded adult film content “with the aim of obtaining material to train its Meta Movie Gen, Large Language Model (‘LLaMA’), alongside various other Meta AI Models that depend on video training material.” Meta faces accusations of downloading copyrighted creations without authorization and distributing them “to hasten its downloads of large quantities of additional content.”

Torrenting refers to a method of peer-to-peer file sharing in which users obtain segments of files from one another. The lawsuit contends that Meta not only downloaded copyrighted adult materials but also shared these files with others, gaining from this conduct. Mashable has contacted Meta for a statement.

Strike 3 Holdings, which asserts its platforms draw more than 25 million visitors each month, is pursuing significant damages that could reach $359 million. As noted by Ars Technica, the company is additionally seeking an injunction to permanently prohibit Meta from reusing its content.

Meta has faced prior lawsuits regarding its AI model training, including a significant copyright and fair use case filed against the corporation by authors such as Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Junot Diaz. Recently, Meta achieved a ruling in its favor against these authors, who argued that the company utilized their copyrighted materials without consent. As reported by Mashable’s Cecily Mauran, “At the core of these disputes lies a conflict of values: the rights and livelihoods of artists versus relentless technological advancement.”

Disclosure: Ziff Davis, the parent organization of Mashable, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April, alleging that it violated Ziff Davis copyrights in the training and functioning of its AI systems.