Alongside the news of the collective licensing scheme announced by Publishers’ Licensing Services (discussed here), over 10,000 authors have added their name to a campaign calling for the Government to protect the publishing industry from the activities of AI companies.

The campaign – supported by the Society of Authors, Publishers Association (a member of Publishers’ Licensing Services), and Fairly Trained – has published a book entitled ‘Don’t Steal This Book’ as a protest against what it describes as “the theft of books by AI companies to train AI models”.

Much like the silent album ‘Is This What We Want?’, released last year by musicians protesting the Government’s proposed plans for AI and copyright, the book is empty, save for the list of authors who support the campaign, many of whom are household names.

The campaign’s website provides more information about the motivation behind the action, stating that:

“The UK government must not legalise book theft to benefit AI companies. AI companies are building their products by copying millions of books without permission or payment. The UK government is considering legalising this large-scale theft. We urge them to rule this out. AI companies should pay for books, like everyone else. If they don’t, this is what we’ll be left with: empty pages, writers without pay, and readers deprived of the next book they’ll love”.

Those behind the book have added that they are particularly concerned about reports that the Government is considering the introduction of a broad text and data mining exception to the UK’s copyright regime for commercial research purposes, having initially expressed a preference (now withdrawn) for an opt-out system as part of its consultation into AI and copyright.

According to the Society of Authors, such a “commercial research exception” would constitute “yet another mechanism that would allow AI companies to use an author’s work to train commercial AI models without consent or compensation” and ignore the views of “over 95% of consultation respondents who argued for the UK’s robust copyright laws to be maintained or strengthened further”.

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