Meta AI-training copyright trial set for 3 May 2027; ex-employee testified he torrented Books3

What happened

A joint case management statement filed on 27 October 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California sets the first trial in the Meta book-piracy copyright cases for 3 May 2027 before Judge Vince Chhabria (Kadrey v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 3:23-cv-03417-VC, Dkt. No. 879), under the court's 14 October 2026 order. Meta and Entrepreneur Media will be tried first, with four more publisher and author cases queued behind them: the Kadrey authors' case, Entrepreneur Media (3:25-cv-09579), and the three publisher matters the parties call the "Three C's" — Cambronne (3:26-cv-03725), Chicken Soup for the Soul (3:26-cv-02333) and Cognella (3:26-cv-04053). If the lead case settles, the 3 May slot passes down in filing order. The pretrial conference is set for 20 April 2027; Meta has asked to move it to 26 or 27 April because of a scheduling conflict for its lead trial counsel.

What the dispute is now about

The statement records that the live dispute is about acquisition, not training: in June 2025 Judge Chhabria granted Meta summary judgment on the fair-use question for training, while noting the plaintiffs had not developed evidence of market dilution. Plaintiffs report that former Meta employee Stephen Roller testified at deposition the Friday before filing that he torrented and knowingly distributed Books3 — a dataset of about 196,000 pirated books — while working at Meta (2017–2023), and deleted his copy about a year ago. Meta disputes that characterisation: it says Roller did not know when he downloaded the dataset, did not testify the download was for or at Meta, did not confirm colleagues had copies, and that the deleted copy sat on his personal computer. Meta acknowledged in early 2024 that it used portions of Books3 to train Llama 1 and Llama 2 without saying how it obtained the dataset; as recently as its 24 August 2026 interrogatory responses, Meta said it did not believe it obtained Books3 via BitTorrent or any peer-to-peer protocol.

Dates and the works list

Entrepreneur Media must file an amended complaint by 6 November 2026, expected to add more than 400 additional books and more than 140 additional magazine issues identified from Meta's interrogatory responses and search results served between 4 August and 30 September 2026, and from plaintiffs' torrenting expert Dr David Choffnes's 2 October 2026 opening report. Further dates: supplemental interrogatory responses 30 October and 6 November 2026; privilege-log disputes to Judge Hixson by 13 November 2026; a further joint discovery letter brief or notice by 17 November 2026. The report also notes Elsevier, Hachette and Macmillan, with further authors, joined the queue of related cases this month.

Status and context

No finding has been made on the torrenting allegations; the deposition account is the plaintiffs' report of testimony, disputed by Meta. This item records the trial date and the case-management developments; it is distinct from the already-published Kadrey items on the June 2025 summary judgment and the November 2026 interim-counsel ruling.