US Judge Allows New Contributory Infringement Claim in Authors vs. Meta — BitTorrent Seeding at Issue

Judge Vince Chhabria of the Northern District of California 'reluctantly' granted a motion by lead plaintiff Richard Kadrey to file a fourth amended complaint against Meta, adding a contributory infringement claim related to Meta's use of BitTorrent to acquire approximately 81.7 terabytes of pirated books — over 7 million titles — from shadow libraries including LibGen and Z-Library. Because BitTorrent requires users to 'seed' (upload) data to others while downloading, the authors argue Meta contributed to third-party copyright infringement. The judge granted the motion to protect absent class members but sharply rebuked the plaintiffs' lawyers at Boies Schiller Flexner for a 'pattern' of blaming Meta for their own litigation failures.