Were Your Books Stolen in Meta’s "Massive AI Training Book Heist"?

So instead of asking authors and paying for the rights to use our books to train their AI system, Meta evidently just used books and articles held in Library Genesis -- a "pirate" site.

Here's an exercise, courtesy of Alex Reisner at The Atlantic: Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta used to Train AI

When I ran the search on my own name, three of my published books came up (one of them twice.)

Run your own name, and see if your works -- without permission, without compensation -- were used to train Meta's AI.

The Authors Guild is calling it a "massive heist," and explains some of the things authors can do, including the information that "Class Action Lawsuits Cover All Writers Whose Books Were Used." They also say, in Meta’s Massive AI Training Book Heist: What Authors Need to Know:

"Meta and other AI companies knew exactly what they were doing but they did it anyway. Why? Because they needed books for their quality writing, style, expression, and long-form narration and would rather steal them than ask and pay for them as they do for all of the other necessary components of their AI, such as electricity and programming."

When I've used words like "Stolen" to describe the action of taking something without permission and without compensation and using it to create something else that is then sold, I've heard the response that I'm exaggerating.

I've also heard some folks say that the AI companies couldn't possibly afford to do it any other way. Except, for 2024 Meta reported, as Yahoo Finance explained, revenue of $164.5 billion -- and a profit of $62.4 billion. 

Billion.

And there are companies who are licensing works for AI training (in fact, the Authors Guild is working with one.) Note: Consent of the creators is key.

Bydonmartin at Instagram (ironically enough, as it is a Meta-owned platform) summed up their creator perspective here. It's well-worth watching.

It's all pretty upsetting, but helpful to stay informed. And maybe, as the Authors Guild suggests in their list of five things authors can do right now, taking some action can help. Here's their first suggestion:

Send a formal notice: If your books are in the LibGen dataset, send a letter to Meta and other AI companies stating they do not have the right to use your books. Here is a template you can use. 

Writing the letter took me two minutes (just added my info and my stolen book info) -- I've copied the text of my letter below. Did it make me feel a bit better? Yeah, a little. And if enough of us do it, maybe it will have an impact. You can draft your own letter here.

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

--

To: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Subject: You Do Not Have the Right to Use My Work

My Message:

I am writing to you as an author who is extremely concerned about your misuse of my creative work. It has come to my attention that you have used my books, Queer as a Five-Dollar Bill, A Different Kind of Brave, and No Way, They Were Gay? Hidden Lives and Secret Loves, in the training of your generative AI models without permission from me, and in violation of my rights under copyright.

This letter is to put you on notice that you do not have the right to use my work to train your AI models. You must obtain express permission and provide reasonable licensing terms for authors’ works.

I hope you will set an example of responsible, legal, ethical AI use by obtaining permission before using authors’ and journalists’ works going forward and compensating us for the use you have already made. 

Lee Wind

What's a Fair Split for AI Licensing? (and the option to opt-out)

Generative (or really, regurgitive) AI systems have largely been trained on creative works by human creators, and some part of what these systems have been trained on are works under copyright that have been used without permission or payment. Cue the use of the term 'stolen.'

There's a movement to license works to train AI systems, with the idea that it's better for authors and illustrators and publishers to make some money on the deal, and to have AI training come to the legal side of things.

Two recent developments in this space to be aware of:

In November 2024, it was announced that HarperCollins made a deal to license some of their nonfiction works for AI training, letting authors opt-in or opt-out, and offering a 50%-50% split with the authors, meaning the publisher would keep 50% of the license fee.

One fascinating aspect of the deal was that HC wouldn't say initially which AI platform was licensing the materials. (The Authors Guild did a piece on that offer here. And Emarketer reported later in November that the HC deal was with Microsoft.)

Screenshot of Publishers Weekly article "Agents, Authors Question HarperCollins AI Deal"

And in December 2024, the Authors Guild put out this statement: AI Licensing for Authors: Who Owns the Rights and What's a Fair Split? stating that AI training is not included under "Subsidiary Rights" as in most current contracts, and that:

"a fair split for most deals will give 75–85 percent to the author, depending on the publisher’s role. Note that some academic presses are presently offering authors a mere 25 percent, which unfairly allows the publisher to reap almost all of the benefit while leaving most of the risk to the author. In all cases, the splits must be negotiated between authors (and their agents) and publishers as a new type of use that was not contemplated under existing contracts.

Most importantly, as these licenses are outside of the original publishing agreement, the author’s share of any publisher AI licensing deal should flow directly to the author and not be applied against an advance."

screenshot of the Authors Guild statement: AI Licensing for Authors: Who Owns the Rights and What's a Fair Split?

Certainly, an author or illustrator being able to opt-out is critical.

Also, if you do opt-in, once your work is part of the training of an AI system, it doesn't seem like there's a workable mechanism to get it back again and remove that information from the knowledge-base the AI has developed.

The metaphor in my mind is that you can't use eggs to bake a quiche and then once it's baked remove the eggs. The eggs are in there. Which leads me to question the timeframe of deals like HC's with Microsoft - they're saying it's just for three years. 

These are early days for AI, and I hope keeping up on these developments is helpful for you as well.

Because none of us know when our publishers might let us know there's been an offer to license our works for AI training, and these are things we should consider.

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

The Authors Guild Puts Out a Statement on AI Training That You Can Sign

Our friends at the Authors Guild have kept the statement short and sweet:

“The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted.”

More than 30,000 authors and creators have signed on so far (for transparency, I've signed it too.)

As I see it, saying "no, this isn't cool" is better than just letting it happen. If you're moved to sign it as well, you can do so here.

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee

The Authors Guild Shares "Practical Tips for Authors To Protect Their Works from AI Use"

Our friends at the Authors Guild are doing some important education and advocacy around Artificial Intelligence, in particular the unauthorized use of copyright-protected content to train generative AI -- though I do think we should be calling it "re-generative" because these systems are not creating anything new, they're regurgitating and remixing human-created creative work.

This piece, Practical Tips for Authors To Protect Their Works from AI Use, is very instructive.

In it, the Authors Guild suggests a "No AI Training" notice be used, something like:

NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

It's well-worth checking out.

Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee