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AG Recommends Clause in Publishing and Distribution Agreements Prohibiting AI Training Uses

Artificial Intelligence Legal & Contracts

March 1, 2023

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The Authors Guild has drafted a new model clause to prohibit the use of an author’s work for training artificial intelligence technologies without the author’s express permission.  Authors and agents can request this clause be added to their contracts.

Authors should be on the lookout for clauses that allow their work to be used for AI training, which involves copying the work many times over. Such clauses sometimes refer to AI expressly, but other times they are more oblique, giving a publisher or distributor the right to use an author’s work for “internal purposes,” “research,” or “data mining.” If you do not want your work used to train generative AI—AI machines that generate new text works—you should ask to have any such provision struck and the prohibition clause added instead. If a click-through agreement that you have no ability to negotiate includes such a provision, you can advise the Authors Guild by emailing staff@authorsguild.org.

The Guild’s Model Trade Book Contract and Literary Translation Model Contract have both been updated to include the new clause. It prohibits the publisher or platform from using or sublicensing books under contract to train generative artificial intelligence technologies without express permission.

The clause is a response to recent concerns about publishers and platforms adding language to their terms that allows them to data mine books for use in training AI models that will inevitably compete with human-authored works. We recommend the inclusion of such clauses unless and until there are licensing solutions that allow authors to be paid for these uses. Even then, authors who do not want their works used in this manner should be able to retain the ability to say no.

The model clause is below:

No Generative AI Training Use.

For avoidance of doubt, Author reserves the rights, and [Publisher/Platform] has no rights to, reproduce and/or otherwise use the Work in any manner for purposes of training artificial intelligence technologies to generate text, including without limitation, technologies that are capable of generating works in the same style or genre as the Work, unless [Publisher/Platform] obtains Author’s specific and express permission to do so. Nor does [Publisher/Platform] have the right to sublicense others to reproduce and/or otherwise use the Work in any manner for purposes of training artificial intelligence technologies to generate text without Author’s specific and express permission.

View the Model Trade Book Contract

View the Literary Translation Model Contract

About the Authors Guild

With more than 13,000 members, the Authors Guild is the nation’s oldest and largest professional organization for published writers. It advocates on behalf of working writers to protect free speech, freedom of expression and authors’ copyrights; fights for fair contracts and authors’ ability to earn a livable wage; and provides a welcoming community for writers and translators of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and journalism. Through its educational and charitable arm, the Authors Guild Foundation, it also offers free programming to teach working writers about the business of writing, as well as organizing events that highlight the importance of a rich, diverse American literary culture and the authors that contribute to it.