You can make a patched torrent client that never uploads any pieces to peers. It'd definitely be within Meta's capability to do so. The real problem is that unlike typical torrenting lawusits, they weren't caught red-handed in the act, and would therefore be hard to go after them. This might seem unfair, but it's not any different than you openly posting on Reddit that you torrent, but it'd be tough for rights holders to go after you even with such admission.
> Previously, a Meta executive in charge of project management, Michael Clark, had testified that Meta allegedly modified torrenting settings "so that the smallest amount of seeding possible could occur," which seems to support authors' claims that some seeding occurred. And an internal message from Meta researcher Frank Zhang appeared to show that Meta allegedly tried to conceal the seeding by not using Facebook servers while downloading the dataset to "avoid" the "risk" of anyone "tracing back the seeder/downloader" from Facebook servers. Once this information came to light, authors asked the court for a chance to depose Meta executives again, alleging that new facts "contradict prior deposition testimony."
>Meta allegedly modified torrenting settings "so that the smallest amount of seeding possible could occur,"
>Meta allegedly tried to conceal the seeding by not using Facebook servers while downloading the dataset to "avoid" the "risk" of anyone "tracing back the seeder/downloader" from Facebook servers
Sounds like they used a VPN, set the upload speed to 1kb/s and stopped after the download is done. If the average Joe copied that setup there's 0% chance he'd get sued, so I don't really see a double standard here. If anything, Meta might get additional scrutiny because they're big enough of a target that rights holders will go through the effort of suing them.
> If the average Joe copied that setup there's 0% chance he'd get sued
Citation needed. RIAA used to just watch torrents and sent cease and desists to everyone who connected, whether for a minute or for months. It was very much a dragnet, and I highly doubt there was any nuance of "but Your Honor, I only seeded 1MB back so it's all good".