Facebook claims it doesn’t like porn, that is, until it needs to use it to train its AI models.

Adult film producer Strike 3 Holdings (parent company of Vixen) has filed a lawsuit against Meta Platforms, Inc. (parent company of Facebook and Instagram), accusing the tech giant of pirating nearly 2,400 copyrighted pornographic films and distributing them via BitTorrent to train its artificial intelligence systems, including its LLaMA large language model and experimental “Movie Gen” video generator.

The complaint, filed in federal court in California in July and unsealed last week, also names CounterLife Media, LLC as a co-plaintiff. Together, the companies allege Meta engaged in “rampant copyright infringement” by torrenting their films beginning in 2018, continuing to distribute them for days or weeks in order to benefit from BitTorrent’s “tit-for-tat” sharing system.

“They have an interest in getting our content because it can give them a competitive advantage for the quality, fluidity, and humanity of the AI,” said Christian Waugh, an attorney for Strike 3.

According to the lawsuit, Meta deliberately targeted adult material because it provides extended, uninterrupted depictions of the human body that mainstream films and television rarely offer.

Strike 3 alleges that this content was “uniquely valuable” for training AI models capable of producing realistic human movement and interaction tools, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg has described as key to achieving AI “superintelligence.”

Meta, which bans pornography across Facebook and Instagram, is accused of hypocrisy: censoring adult content publicly while secretly torrenting pornographic films for internal use.

The plaintiffs say they identified Meta’s activity through their proprietary anti-piracy monitoring systems, which traced infringement to 47 IP addresses registered to Meta/Facebook. Exhibits in the case list more than 2,396 adult films allegedly pirated, along with unrelated copyrighted content, from TV shows like Modern Family and South Park to works titled ExploitedTeens and EuroTeenErotica.

Strike 3 argues that Meta’s distribution practices also risked making adult films accessible to minors, since BitTorrent has no age verification system.

The companies are seeking $350 million in damages along with injunctive relief to prevent further infringement.

Meta spokesperson Christopher Sgro said: “We’re reviewing the complaint, but we don’t believe Strike’s claims are accurate.”

The case comes amid a wave of copyright lawsuits against AI companies accused of scraping or pirating material without permission. In a separate case earlier this year, Judge Vince Chhabria ruled Meta had not violated the law in training AI on copyrighted books — but noted that plaintiffs had pursued the wrong legal strategy, leaving the door open for stronger claims in future cases.

“This is perhaps the case of the century because of the sheer scope of infringement,” Waugh said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a four-sentence poem or adult entertainment. There is no appetite in this country for what AI companies appear to be doing, which is making money off the backs of rights holders who never gave permission for it.”