Artificial Intelligence Meta

Gooner’s Lament

It’s giving new meaning to the phrase, “I’d hate to be that guy.”

Published Nov 8, 2025 8:15 AM EST

Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Imags

Just when you thought you’ve seen it all, Meta comes out and accuses a random man of hosting a trove of illegally torrented smut.

The whole thing started with a July lawsuit by an adult film companies Strike 3 — which has been called the “most active copyright litigant in the United States” — and Counterlife Media.

To make a long story short, the two rightsholders essentially accused Meta of illegally torrenting some 2,400 skin flicks to train its AI systems. Their civil suit seeks a combined $359 million in damages, and alleges Meta could be developing a secret “adult version” of its generative AI software, Movie Gen.

It wouldn’t exactly be uncharacteristic of Meta, which was found to have fed over seven million illegally-pirated books, articles, and magazines into its AI earlier this year. There’s also the smoking gun to consider — as the copyright industry publication TorrentFreak reported, Meta was caught with their pants down hosting 47 IP addresses linked to the illegal distribution of all those dirty movies.

Yet to hear the tech giant tells it, the videos were actually downloaded “for private personal use,” as flagged by Gizmodo. The counter-argument came via Meta’s motion to dismiss the case, as part of a claim that the 2,400 video files in question aren’t enough to develop a workable AI model.

“The small number of downloads — roughly 22 per year on average across dozens of Meta IP addresses — is plainly indicative of private personal use, not a concerted effort to collect the massive datasets Plaintiffs allege are necessary for effective AI training,” Meta quarreled.

A Meta spokesperson told *Giz *that the company doesn’t “want this type of content,” adding that it takes “deliberate steps to avoid training on this kind of material.”

Yet its motion to dismiss goes even farther.

“[Strike 3] points to 97 additional downloads made using the home IP address of a Meta contractor’s father, but plead no facts plausibly tying Meta to those downloads, which are plainly indicative of personal consumption,” the filing alleged.

In other words, Meta’s arguing that it isn’t their professional goon stash — but instead some worker’s dad whose torrenting habit happened to be detected in a sweep of illegal activity on IP addresses related to its corporate activities. Whether that excuse adds up will be a matter for the court, but in the meantime, it’s a pretty humiliating reminder to use a VPN.

**More on Gooning: Scientists Scanned the Brains of Hardcore Gooners and Found Something Ominous **