Statements

Authors Guild Demands Prior Consent for AI Use of Academic and News Content

Artificial Intelligence

July 30, 2024

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The Authors Guild is deeply concerned by recent licensing deals made by academic, educational, magazine, and newspaper publishers with AI companies without consulting their authors. For instance, Taylor & Francis recently entered into a $10 million deal with Microsoft whereby it will provide Microsoft with non-exclusive access to texts and will receive further undisclosed recurring payments to be paid over three years. John Wiley has also entered into licensing deals for its book content to help AI companies develop large language models, with the initial two projects generating $23 million and $21 million for the publisher.

In addition to these publishers, a growing number of newspapers, magazines, and online brands have licensed their content for AI uses, including NewsCorp (owner of The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post), the Associated Press, Reuters, The Atlantic, and Vox Media.

To our knowledge, none of these publishers reached out to the authors of the books or articles for permission to license the works for AI use, nor have any of them compensated authors.

While it is true that academic and educational book publishers and many news and magazine publications acquire works from writers under an assignment of the full copyright, that is not always the case, so the publishers may not have had any or all of the subsidiary rights to some of the works licensed.

Even in cases where the publisher obtained full copyright, the utilization of works for AI training or specialized AI mining goes far beyond the original intentions when the agreements were drafted. These agreements typically only encompass the publication of the work, either in whole or in part. The contractual clauses allowing for the use of future technologies, such as “now or hereafter known,” are not applicable.

Unlike past technological advancements in publishing that mainly related to new publication methods or access, training generative AI with written works represents a fundamentally distinct use. Generative AI applications could devalue writers’ work by capturing their voice and style, potentially leading to unfair competition with the author. This impacts both the economic and moral rights of the author.

The Authors Guild believes that the right to license a work for AI training belongs to the author of the work unless the rights are expressly granted in an agreement. Even where the publication holds the copyright of the work, we believe that it is grossly unfair and unethical to train AI on any writer’s work without their permission.

We call on all publishers who have signed licensing deals with AI companies to promptly offer opt-outs or compensation to all authors and journalists whose works have been included under the license.

If you are an Authors Guild member who believes that your work is covered under an AI license without your consent, please reach out to the Authors Guild with a copy of your contract, so that we can review and advise as to whether your publisher was authorized to include your work in an AI licensing deal.