On May 1, 2025, a federal courtroom in San Francisco became ground zero for one of the most consequential copyright hearings in recent memory. The three hour hearing in Kadrey v. Meta Platforms marked the first major judicial test of whether using copyrighted works to train generative AI systems—like Meta’s LLaMA models—qualifies as “fair use” under U.S. copyright law. While Judge Vince Chhabria has yet to issue a formal decision, his comments during oral argument offer critical clues about how courts may approach this issue going forward.

Fair use, codified in 17 U.S.C. § ...