Meta's Llama AI Model: Profits, Partnerships, and Piracy Allegations

Meta Profits From Llama AI Models Despite Denials, Court Filing Reveals - Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL)

Meta Platforms Inc. META has reportedly been discovered to be profiting from its Llama AI models through revenue-sharing agreements with host businesses. What Happened: An unredacted court filing submitted by attorneys for the plaintiffs in the copyright lawsuit Kadrey v. Meta reveals that the company earns a share of the revenue from businesses that host its Llama AI models. The lawsuit indicates that the company reportedly trained its Llama models using pirated e-books. The filing does not specify which hosts pay Meta, but the company has previously listed partners including Amazon's AWS, Nvidia NVDA, Databricks, Groq, Dell DELL, Microsoft Inc's MSFT Azure, Alphabet's GOOG GOOGL Google Cloud, and Snowflake SNOW. While developers can download and run Llama models independently, many choose to use a host partner for additional services and tooling. Meta did not immediately respond to Benzinga's request for comment. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggested the possibility of monetizing Llama models during an earnings call in April, hinting that companies reselling these services should share a portion of their revenue with Meta. However, Zuckerberg later backtracked and in a July blog post, the Meta CEO stated, "selling access" to Meta's openly available Llama AI models "isn't [Meta's] business model." The recent revelation of these revenue-sharing agreements contradicts the company's latest stance and suggests that Meta has begun to act on its previous strategy. SEE ALSO: Shell Announces Final Investment Decision for Major Brazil Oil Field, Set for 120,000 Barrels/Day Why It Matters: This revelation comes just days after Zuckerberg announced that Meta's Llama model had reached a milestone of 1 billion downloads. Zuckerberg celebrated this achievement on Threads, stating that each download represented a "vote of confidence in open source AI". The new court filing, however, raises questions about Meta's revenue strategy and the company's transparency with its partners and users. Zuckerberg stated that Meta benefits from Llama mainly through AI research-driven improvements. Llama models power various Meta products, including its AI assistant, Meta AI. Despite ongoing legal battles, Meta continues to advance its AI investments. The Zuckerberg-led company also intends to launch a trial paid subscription service for Meta AI, offering users access to advanced versions of its technology. Meta holds a momentum rating of 78.90% and a growth rating of 77.28%, according to Benzinga's Proprietary Edge Rankings. The Benzinga Growth metric evaluates a stock's historical earnings and revenue expansion across multiple timeframes, prioritizing both long-term trends and recent performance. For an in-depth report on more stocks and insights into growth opportunities, sign up for Benzinga Edge. READ MORE: Nova Scotia Joins Other Canadian Provinces In Excluding Elon Musk's Tesla From EV Rebate Program Image via Shutterstock Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. DELLDell Technologies Inc$99.421.90%Stock Score Locked: Want to See it? Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Reveal Full ScoreEdge RankingsMomentum27.89Growth54.49Quality-Value39.90Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewGOOGAlphabet Inc$168.151.14%GOOGLAlphabet Inc$166.041.25%METAMeta Platforms Inc$607.201.84%MSFTMicrosoft Corp$395.271.02%NVDANVIDIA Corp$119.471.50%SNOWSnowflake Inc$161.932.23%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Court Filing Reveals Meta Monetising from Llama AI Model Hosting

We missed this earlier: Social media conglomerate Meta is involved in revenue-sharing agreements with hosts of its Llama Artificial Intelligence (AI) models, revealed court filings related to an ongoing copyright lawsuit, Kadrey vs. Meta. While the case itself deals with Meta's alleged usage of a vast quantity of data from pirated e-books to train Llama, proceedings before the United States District Court for the Northern District of California on March 21 saw plaintiffs' attorneys noting that the company "shares a percentage of the revenue" that the AI model hosts generate from Llama users. The court redacts the names of the AI model hosts in question with whom the company might have such arrangements in place. However, a TechCrunch report lists companies like AWS, Nvidia, Databricks, Groq, Dell, Azure, Google Cloud, and Snowflake as hosting partners for Llama which Meta has purportedly mentioned in several of its blog posts. Interestingly, this comes after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said back in July 2024 that the company was not keen on the prospect of "selling access to AI models", while pushing for wider adoption of open sourcing as a practice. But he did have plans in mind for monetising aspects of the service. As per the report, during Meta's earnings call in April 2024, the former floated ideas such as monetisation through business messaging services and advertisements in "AI interactions". "[I]f you're someone like Microsoft or Amazon or Google and you're going to basically be reselling these services, that's something that we think we should get some portion of the revenue for," Zuckerberg was quoted saying. Apart from revenue-sharing agreements for Llama, an AI model allegedly trained through pirated e-books among others, the court document revealed something else that is significantly worrisome. "Meta's engineers were well aware of the legal risks posed by pirating data through P2P sharing, but they decided to do it anyway, apparently with the approval of Meta's in-house counsel," the release stated. It also described messages exchanged between several Meta engineers regarding the legitimacy of 'seeding' (uploading) the concerned files, as it can land the content outside, potentially having legal consequences. One of the examples it provided in this regard is the struggle they faced with directly downloading shadow library LibGen, eventually deciding to Torrent the entire SciMag section of LibGen that contained "approximately 81 million scientific articles." While Meta's actions, such as the back-and-forth on monetisation and revenue sharing with partners for Llama, are largely discussable here, what is also noteworthy is the copyright argument against the company and the alleged ways in which it has tried to bypass ethical responsibilities by opting for dubious strategies like torrenting. This raises questions as to whether stricter regulation is required in the AI model training/development space.