Okay, but if there was no permission to "copy" the content by the owners. I wish I knew more about it all, but seems to me that quoting a snippet from a book while offering comment on it would be classic fair use. Consuming the entire collection for free to charge for transformative services really doesn't feel 'fair'.
And again I can't shake the feeling that if I did this, was brought to court. I would be laughed at for claiming fair use.
I still don't fully grok how Meta can legally download a pirated book as fair use when an individual doing the same would be deemed a criminal act.
It would seem that Meta still don't have the right to make copies of books that they haven't paid for no matter what they do with it.
Since we have a usage based assessment system on the major chip in the right to prevent copying, "fair use", which by the way is designed specifically for the common good -- enhancing the overall value to society of works that are limited by their creators -- its not about the copying. Its about the usage. Reading by an llm is fair usage in this case according to this judge's early speculations.
Copyright covers four rights:
The right to make copies
The right to distribute copies
The right to create derivative works
The right to publicly perform
Copying and distribution are central to what copyright attempts to control.