Authors Guild AI-Related Model Publishing Contract Clauses

The model clauses below cover important aspects of AI uses of author’s works: specifically, prohibiting AI use of an author’s work without the author’s consent; licensing specific AI uses as subsidiary rights with fair compensation; protecting audiobook and translation rights from AI uses without the author’s approval; and governing the author’s permissible use of AI in submitted manuscripts as well as the publisher’s use of AI in connection with the work. Authors and agents may request that publishers use any of these clauses, and publishers are free to adopt them.

• Model Clauses for Trade Publishing Agreements Regarding Use of a Literary Work for AI Training and Other Uses
  • Model Clause Prohibiting All AI Use
  • Model Clause Permitting Some AI Uses as Subsidiary Rights with Splits
• Model Clauses Giving Authors Right of Approval over AI Use for Audio and Translation
  • Audiobook Clause
  • Translation Clause
• Model Clause Covering Author’s Use of Generative AI
• Model Clauses Covering Publisher’s Use of Generative AI
  • No Uploading Author’s Personal Information or Manuscript to Commercial AI
  • No Substantive Editing with AI

Model Clauses for Trade Publishing Agreements Regarding Use of a Literary Work for AI Training and Other Uses

The Authors Guild strongly recommends that authors retain control over how their work is used by AI technologies either by expressly reserving all AI rights (including training and output uses) OR, if they wish to license their works for AI uses, by specifically granting AI rights for negotiated compensation akin to other subsidiary rights, such as dramatic, commercial, merchandising, etc. The first clause below explicitly reserves all AI related rights to the author unless they are specifically granted, and the second clause can be added to allow authors to choose which specific rights they are willing to allow publishers to license out. While licensing for many of these rights is not common as of this writing, these types of uses are quickly coming down the pike, and licensing them is a potential way to bring in some additional income. The second clause below is intended to clearly set out the conditions and splits for those licenses.

The model language and recommendations below are intended as a step towards a norm. But authors should take note that as we are still in the early stages of the development of AI licensing markets, particularly for derivative uses, and that most trade publishers have yet to adopt a framework for handling AI rights. 

The most important takeaway is that any and all grants of AI rights to publishers should be expressly negotiated.

Model Clause Prohibiting All AI Use

The following clause should be included in all trade agreements—it simply spells out that the publisher has no AI rights unless expressly granted under the agreement. It ensures that all AI rights are expressly negotiated and set forth in the contract. In particular, the clause clarifies that the training rights do not flow under the contract.

If your contract is an all rights deal (which we advise against in our Model Trade Contract, but which many educational and some academic publishers insist on), the publisher acquires full ownership of the copyright in the book rather than an exclusive license to publish the book and make other uses in connection with publication. In this case, you instead need to include an express reservation of any AI rights that you do not wish the publisher to have the right to exercise. 

Note the exception for the publisher’s internal AI use. Many publishers already use internal AI systems for marketing, sales, and distribution related activities, and you will likely have to allow this. Just ensure that the carveout for internal use is well-cabined.

Model Clause Permitting Some AI Uses as Subsidiary Rights with Splits

This clause sets up a structure that would allow the publisher to license out training and other specified AI rights on your behalf as subsidiary rights. This provision can be used as a stand-alone clause in the contract, added to the subsidiary rights provision, included as an amendment to an existing agreement, or used as a stand-alone agreement. 

Note, however, that unless you specifically provide otherwise, income generated from such licenses would typically be applied against the advance, as with all royalties. Ideally, payment from the disposition of AI rights should flow directly to the author, if possible; or if the AI rights are part of the overall deal with the publisher, then the value of those rights should be appropriately factored into the size of the advance. Our model clause provides optional language to allow for pass-through flow of AI licensing income to the author (meaning the income would not be applied against the advance). 

Recognizing the growing harms that AI is causing writers, it will be important to bring income back into writers’ hands from AI use, and these types of licenses are one way to do it. It is crucial to establish that these are licensed rights—paid for and permissioned—and not permitted without a license. Already we see companies using authors’ works and identities in AI products just because the underlying LLMs allow them to do so.

This clause segregates AI rights into the following sub-rights categories: (1) AI Training, which involves selling the rights to ingest the book to train a model (such as an LLM); (2) RAG Summary (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), which involves licensing the book for systems that query the text to provide summaries or answers (e.g., “chat with this book”); and (3) other uses that allow users to interact with a book for personal/non-commercial use.

Be sure to NOT include any right in the list that you do not expressly agree to grant. If it is agreed that the publisher will have only the right to enter into non-exclusive sublicenses (i.e., you would like to retain the right to make similar grants to others, such as for training), you should state that next to the specific right; or if you are granting all AI rights on a non-exclusive basis, then add language to the effect. Also be sure the agreement states if express permission is required prior to the publisher’s entering into a sublicense.Other rights may be added by express agreement.

Model Clauses Giving Authors Right of Approval over AI Use for Audio and Translation

Authors should have the right to approve whether AI is used to produce translations and audiobooks when these rights are granted in the contract. The following clauses require an author’s written consent for a publisher to use AI-generated book translations or audiobook narration. These clauses can benefit publishers and the publishing industry at large by maintaining the high-quality craftsmanship that readers are used to and prevent the use of AI to replace human creators. The Authors Guild strongly believes that human writing, narration, and translation are superior to their AI counterparts. Moreover, as an ethical matter, the Authors Guild opposes relying on these tools to replace human creators, in part because current AI content generators have largely been trained on pre-existing works without consent. The Guild stands in solidarity with human creators in other industries who, like authors, face professional threats from AI-generated content flooding the markets for their work. At the same time, we recognize that some books would not support an audiobook production without AI and that AI will allow books to be translated into more languages than they otherwise might.

Audiobook Clause (For Use with Audiobook Grants)

Translation Clause (For Use with Grants of Translation Rights)

Model Clause Covering Author’s Use of Generative AI

The following provisions establish the disclosure requirements for the author’s use of any AI-generated material in the work and restrictions on publishers requiring authors to use AI to develop text.

Model Clauses Covering Publisher’s Use of Generative AI

No Uploading Author’s Personal Information or Manuscript to Commercial AI

The Authors Guild is concerned about reports that some publishing professionals are uploading manuscripts and authors’ personal information into public, consumer-facing AI systems for uses such as generating summaries, assessments, and marketing copy without permission from the authors or adequate guardrails to ensure that the manuscripts are not used by AI companies for training.

Uploading or inputting a copyrighted work or an author’s personal information into public, consumer-facing AI systems without permission may constitute a violation of the author’s copyright or right of privacy, and it puts the author’s intellectual property and personal information at risk. Editors, agents, and others in the industry who have access to authors’ works should not upload their manuscript to or otherwise prompt consumer-facing chatbots with any author’s works without first getting the author’s written permission. Further, where consumer-facing chatbots are used in workflows, publishers and other industry professionals should ensure that they opt out of having the work used for training. All of the common chatbots provide this option. Publishers should also take care that any internal AI systems are sandboxed models with guardrails to prevent the manuscripts or author information from being used as inputs for training.

No Substantive Editing with AI

To prevent injecting any AI-generated text into an author’s work, publishers should not use AI to substantively edit manuscripts, with the exception of basic spelling and grammar- checking applications.