The “Meta used pirated copies of my books to train its AI” scandal is most definitely not going away. A recap for anyone who hasn’t been on the internet since last Thursday: The Atlantic published a search facility for the aggregated piracy site LibGen. Writers have been using it and finding out that their titles are on the list (including two of mine). Meta gave the go-ahead from the highest level to use LibGen to train its LLaMA AI. Allegedly, that highest level knew it was a piracy site. Now, those authors call for compensation (inter alia!).
ALLi News Editor, Dan Holloway
Richard Osman Calls for Collective Action
And that is where we come in with the latest development. Writers seem to have spotted that they might have grounds for claiming compensation—especially with such a handy tool for proving you have titles in LibGen. Leading the charge has been Richard Osman, who is either a vastly successful author of cozy mysteries or a game show host, depending on your perspective. Either way, he has a very high profile and is calling for writers to band together to take on Meta.
Industry Bodies Prepare Legal Pushback
This latest scandal comes, of course, as Bologna Book Fair is scheduled to open with an AI conference on April 1. The big names in the industry (not just Richard Osman) are starting to get their hot take on the whole affair ahead of this event (ALLi’s rapid response came some days ago, and you can read it here).
In the UK, the Publishers Association has come out swinging, with its lawyers making a statement that they are considering next steps. They have been joined by the Association of American Publishers and publishing giant Cambridge University Press (as reported by Publishing Perspectives).
Meanwhile, Meta’s representatives have responded on the matter to The Guardian. And boy, is it a corker. It ends: “Fair use of copyrighted materials is vital to this.” As the saying goes, I’m not sure that’s the hot take they think it is!
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