Robert O'Donoghue (Dublin Fingal West, Labour)
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210. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the engagement he has had with Meta about the reported use of pirated creative works to train its AI models, including thousands of books produced by Irish creators and publishers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16359/25]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I fully recognise concerns raised by Irish authors and their representative bodies regarding the use of work by a Tech company in training generative AI models without author consent.

I understand that a legal challenge by authors against a company is ongoing in the US District Court of Northern California in relation to its use of LibGen, a pirated database of copyrighted material, to train its large language model, Llama. This database may include works by Irish authors. The matter is before the courts so the outcome of this legal challenge will not be known for some time.

In Ireland, the legal landscape concerning the use of copyrighted works for AI training involves several considerations. The Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 (as amended) provides robust protection for copyrighted works. As an EU Member State, Ireland has implemented the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, transposed by S.I. No. 567/2021, which introduced a Text and Data Mining (TDM) exception that allows commercial companies to use copyrighted material under certain conditions unless rightsholders explicitly opt out. This exception requires works to be lawfully accessible.