The Authors Guild
@AuthorsGuild
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Authors working together to ensure fair pay, protect copyright, and defend free speech.
New York, NY
Joined March 2010
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The Authors Guild exists to support working writers.
Learn what we're doing about AI:
Join us to stop book banning:
See all our advocacy work:
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We are actively investigating this matter.
This dude stole 15,000 authors' books for his AI project.
@AuthorsGuild
needs to be looking into this immediately along with all the publishers affected.
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“This isn’t a country where we quash books that the leader finds unpleasant,” said the Authors Guild president, James Gleick. “That’s what tyrants do, not American presidents.”
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We have organized a lawsuit against OpenAI for copyright infringement of their works of fiction on behalf of a class of authors whose works have been used to train GPT. Plaintiffs incl John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, Victor LaValle, George R.R. Martin & more.
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We've been raising concerns about the use of generative AI like this and are currently in DC meeting with Congress to speak out for writers. Flooding the market with AI-generated books will decimate authors' incomes. 🧵
Introducing `gpt-author` 📕✍️
One prompt -> an entire fantasy novel!
Just describe the high-level details, and a chain of AI systems will write an entire book for you in minutes.
- complete w/ cover art
- export to Kindle store
And it's open-source:
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A major breakthrough!
@Amazon
has informed us that it's ending its policy allowing for ebook returns. This is the result of steady discussion with the company along with
@Soc_of_Authors
. A win for authors everywhere!!
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Authors Guild and
@romancewriters
Prevail in Court Defending Authors in “Cocky” Trademark Dispute:
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As writers, we know the profound impact our work has had on the development of AI models. We are calling on AI leaders to stop using our works without our consent, compensation, or credit.
Please join us in signing our open letter.
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We are extremely concerned by reports that
#NewLeaf
Literary agency dropped one of its agents’ authors by email over the weekend.
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Many authors discovered their books were used without permission to train AI systems, raising concerns about copyright, compensation, & implications for the future of the writing profession. Here’s what you need to know if your books are in this dataset.
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@JaneFriedman
As a member of the Authors Guild, we can advocate on your behalf and are reaching out to senior management immediately to let them know that these works are an attempt to trade off your brand and must be removed as infringements of the Lanham Act.
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"The median income for a full-time writer last year was $23,000. And writers' incomes declined by 42% between 2009 and 2019."
@NPR
investigates the effects of AI on writers' work and incomes.
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Disclosure requirements are a MUST when AI-generated text makes up a significant portion of a work, empowering readers to make informed choices and respecting authors' contributions.
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The
#DisneyMustPay
Task Force is once again calling on
@Disney
to honor its contracts and pay the writers.
Thank you
@neilhimself
,
@tessgerritsen
,
@LeeGoldberg
,
@MaryRobinette
, and
@ChuckWendig
!
You can read our open letter here:
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No Copyright for AI work: AI-generated outputs should not be eligible for copyright protection. This avoids oversaturating the market and preserves the uniqueness and value of human-authored content that fuels our literary landscape.
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Transparency in AI Training: AI companies should be obligated to disclose the copyrighted works used to train their AI models. We have to safeguard the rights of authors and prevent unauthorized use of their intellectual property.
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#DisneyMustPay
Disney has been reprinting media tie-in works without notifying their creators who are contractually owed statements and royalties. If this has happened to you, visit to report.
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Fair Compensation: When AI outputs heavily rely on or mimic specific works (ex - sound- write- look-alikes), creators deserve proper recognition/compensation & be subject to licensing agreements. The foundation of AI dev must respect the rights of those who pioneered creativity.
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IA's National Emergency Library has misrepresented the nature and legality of the project through a deceptive publicity campaign.
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We'll soon be releasing ethical guidelines for authors and publishers, about AI use. We must find a balance between technological advancements and protecting the interests of creators.
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We are thrilled by the decision in the Internet Archive/Open Library lawsuit. As we have long argued, scanning & lending books w/out permission or compensation is NOT fair use—it is theft & it devalues authors’ works.
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We oppose the proposed sale of Simon & Schuster to Penguin Random House. It would mean that the combined publishing house would account for approximately 50% of all trade books published, creating a huge imbalance in the U.S. publishing industry.
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Some clarification: Customers looking to return ebooks after reading more than 10% will need to send in a customer service request, which will be reviewed by a representative to ensure that the requested return is genuine and complies with Amazon's policies against abuse.
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"Conservative attacks against schools and libraries have proliferated nationwide over the past two years, and librarians themselves have been harassed and even driven out of their jobs." (
@AP
)
#BannedBooksWeek
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@anna_mocikat
@mattshumer_
Here are our thoughts:
We've been raising concerns about the use of generative AI like this and are currently in DC meeting with Congress to speak out for writers. Flooding the market with AI-generated books will decimate authors' incomes. 🧵
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Did you know that you can block OpenAI's web crawler from accessing their website? We've gathered some practical tips for authors to utilize so that they may protect their work from AI.
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"Day by day I understand what Toni Morrison meant when she said that the serious function of racism is distraction. So as a writer, I’m going to write. I’m going to tell the stories young people need. That will be my advocacy."
@angiecthomas
on the power of storytelling.
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Authors can take advantage of a new tax deduction
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As writers, we know the profound impact our work has had on the development of AI models. We are calling on AI leaders to stop using our works without our consent, compensation, or credit.
Join us in signing our open letter.
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“To preserve our literature, authors must have the ability to control if and how their works are used by generative AI. Regurgitated culture is no replacement for human art.”
—Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild
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We condemn the
@smithsonian
Asian Pacific American Center’s last-minute cancellation of the Asian American Literature Festival. The sudden cancellation is egregious, especially for a quasi-government organization.
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"Some adults have decided that their comfort is more important than a young person seeing themselves in a book."
@angiecthomas
speaking about book censorship at the 31st Annual Authors Guild Foundation Gala.
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Please note! The changes will not be immediate as it will take Amazon time to implement the new process, but we anticipate they’ll be completed by year-end.
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“Our membership is diverse and passionate. Our staff, which includes a formidable legal team, has expertise in copyright law. This is all to say: We do not bring this suit lightly. We are here to fight.”
—Maya Shanbhag Lang, president of the Authors Guild
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Indeed! We must work to regulate AI.
We have an open letter calling on AI leaders to stop using our works without our consent, compensation, or credit. It currently has 6k+ signatures from writers incl.
@MargaretAtwood
,
@rgay
, & more.
Authors: we need to stand up with the actors. AI is ALREADY HERE in our work. I just spoke to a Very Famous Author who has to remain nameless for legal reasons. They are held up in a contract negotiation because a Major Publisher wants to train AI on their work.
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Authors impacted can reach out to us, though we can only represent our members in legal matters. Members of the Authors Guild should send in their agency agreements to our legal staff for advisement. Interested authors, contact us at - staff at authorsguild dot org
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“Authors should have the right to decide when their works are used to ‘train’ AI. If they choose to opt in, they should be appropriately compensated.”
—Jonathan Franzen, author of The Corrections and Crossroads
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UPDATE: After hearing from both us and many authors,
@audible_com
advised us that, effective as of January 1, 2021, they will pay royalties for any title returned more than 7 days following purchase.
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"If you ask GPT-4 to do a passage in the style of Carmen Machado or Margaret Atwood or Alexander Chee, it will do a fair job at it, and for good reason: It likely ingested all their works in the training process, and now uses their ingenuity for its own."
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"We would not pursue legal action unless we felt it was the best way forward. As fellow author and plaintiff George Saunders put it, we want 'the tech world to make good on its frequent declarations that it is on the side of creativity.'"—
@mayaslang
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“I’m very happy to be part of this effort to nudge the tech world to make good on its frequent declarations that it is on the side of creativity. Fair compensation means that a person’s work is valued, plain and simple."
—George Saunders, author of Lincoln in the Bardo
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@benji_smith
copyright is not an opt-out regime, but permission must be obtained prior to use – and payment made if requested. We see from your posts that you intended to make a useful tool – and we appreciate that, but you need to start over with licensed content.
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Need assistance during the COVID-19 crisis but are finding it difficult parsing through all that's there? We are here to help:
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"Everyone has a right to be offended by whatever offends them, and everyone on earth has a right to articulate their offense. No one has a right to maim or kill someone because our words offend them." (
@adamgopnik
@NewYorker
)
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Despite its name, the NEL was not a real library. Real libraries support authors by lending copies they've bought and by licensing eBooks. 2/8
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For the first time in at least 70 years, we are making our Model Trade Book Contract available to all.
We hope authors will find our model useful, as its terms and language are meant to increase transparency.
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We welcome news that the Internet Archive has shut down the National Emergency Library. Although AG and thousands of authors had demanded NEL's shutdown, IA made the decision voluntarily after it was sued by publishers. 1/8
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We are in solidarity with everyone that has signed this open letter to the
@smithsonian
including authors like
@rokwon
,
@alexanderchee
,
@vanjchan
,
@minjinlee11
,
@MonicaYoun
, and more.
@smithsoniansec
@SmithsonianAPA
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"Generative AI models like ChatGPT use vast troves of data scraped from the internet to produce content that mimics human speech."
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We've joined a powerful coalition of Texas bookstores, national booksellers, authors, and publishers to challenge a new censorship law in Texas - known as the “Reader Act” (formerly HB 900) which raises concerns about free expression.
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We have written a letter to the Pennsylvania DOC denouncing their new policy limiting prisoner access to books
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We are introducing FOUR new model clauses concerning
#AI
to our Model Trade Book Contract and Model Literary Translation Contract.
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Have you heard of Writer's Beware? It's an invaluable resource helmed by
@sfwa
and
@victoriastrauss
whose mission is to shed light and provide insight on all the scams and possible snags that writers might come across during their journey.
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We are deeply troubled by news of the attack on Salman Rushdie this morning. Mr. Rushdie is receiving medical attention; he is a longtime friend of the AG. We are watching the events with extreme concern. We hope for Mr. Rushdie’s full and quick recovery.
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"Books, even bad ones, let you live another life for a few hundred pages. They let you walk in the souls of people you may never meet and connect you in ways you might not expect. And that frightens a lot of people."
#BannedBooksWeek
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Join us on Tuesday, 5/26/2020, to honor two authors who have done so much for the literary community,
@MargaretAtwood
and
@judyblume
. Both authors will be in conversation live with award-winning author
@AndreaDavisPink
.
Register to attend:
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THIS: "We desperately need guardrails on this landslide of misattribution and misinformation. Amazon and Goodreads, I beg you to create a way to verify authorship, or for authors to easily block fraudulent books credited to them."
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"I write for children because childhood is the foundation where our thinking is laid" -Suzanne Collins
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Companies have scraped millions of copyrighted books/articles and copied them without permission to train generative AI. We are conducting a survey and would like to hear from you.
Be sure to share it with your writer friends!
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We stand in solidarity with our fellow writers and members of the Writers Guild of America (
@WGAWest
@WGAEast
).
#WGASTRIKE
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Today is also
#NationalAuthorsDay
! Remember to celebrate your favorite authors and the power of writing today and everyday.
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We are pleased to announce the results of our Survey of Literary Translators’ Working Conditions in 2022.
The survey was made possible through collaborations with
@LitTranslate
,
@PENamerica
, and more.
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"It is inherently unfair to use copyrighted works to create highly profitable tech, which is also able to produce competing derivative works without the creator's consent, compensation or credit" - Umair Kazi
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Can You Trademark Your Title?
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Our letter has now been signed by over 10,000 (!!) authors including the actor Gabriel Bryne and musician Tegan Quin from Tegan and Sara—who have all published memoirs.
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We're honored to be awarding
@angiecthomas
the Authors Guild Foundation Award for Literary Activism presented by
@JasonReynolds83
at the 31st Annual Gala.
We hope you can join us in celebrating!
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Ahead of her novel, An American Marriage (out tomorrow!), we sat down with author and AG council member
@tayari
to discuss teaching, mentoring, and misconceptions about full-time writing
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The court’s ruling vindicates six years of our advocacy against Open Library’s illegal scanning and distribution of books, finding the Internet Archive’s “fair use” defense to be entirely without merit.
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A Call to Save America’s Bookstores
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Contract issues with Disney-owned/controlled companies continue to affect multiple authors across different writer organizations. This is UNACCEPTABLE. Are you owed money?
#DisneyMustPay
@SFWA
@romancewriters
@horrorwriters
@paythewriter
@SINCnational
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We strongly object to the terms of
@Medium
's Writers Challenge. It takes a broad, perpetual license to any work you submit whether or not you win. It is non-exclusive but will make it hard to sell the piece to another publisher or even sell film or podcast rights.
👋 Calling all storytellers: We’re excited to announce the
#MediumWritersChallenge
.
Four writing prompts.
Four weeks.
$100K in rewards for your writing.
Read more: 👇
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Companies have scraped millions of copyrighted books/articles and copied them without permission to train generative AI.
We are conducting a survey and would like to hear from you.
Be sure to share it with your writer friends!
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IA tried to justify its illegal creation and distribution of ebooks under a legally absurd theory of fair use. Judge Koeltl saw through their rhetoric and false comparisons.
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We also thank
@ChuckWendig
for standing up for fellow authors. The vast majority of authors are not best-sellers. They can barely make ends meet these days. If you care about books, then you have to care about the people that write them. 8/8
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“I am free because the poorest, the most oppressed, the most discontented in American society resisted.”
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We proudly join readers everywhere to
#UniteAgainstBookBans
and fight back against censorship in schools and libraries across the country.
#RightToReadDay
begins Monday: Join us by taking action to protect your freedom to read!
.
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We are deeply concerned about this sudden rise in censorship and its impact on education, the rights of students, and freedom of expression.
We join
@ncacensorship
and 400+ signatories in the fight to defend the freedom to read.
#BooksNotBans
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Throughout the years, IA has shown a shocking disrespect to authors’ calls for it to stop the illegal scanning and distribution of their books.
We approached IA years ago to create a license for books used on Open Library but IA refused to engage with us.
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The Authors Guild Foundation has partnered with
@HMHbooks
on FOURTEEN DAYS: AN UNAUTHORIZED GATHERING out Spring 2022, one of the 1st novels about the pandemic that will be a collaborative effort w/
@MargaretAtwood
,
@JohnGrisham
,
@pronounced_ing
, & more.
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The check is in the mail! We are pleased to report that nearly 2500 freelance writers will be receiving a total of more than $9 million as compensation for copyright infringement by electronic database, newspaper, and magazine publishers
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We are proud to support the proposed Freelance Isn’t Free Act (FIFA), which was introduced today to provide essential protections to gig workers statewide (approx. 30% of the workforce).
@freelancersu
@gaguild
@TeamstersJC16
@apanewyork
@FSP_NWU
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We stand with the authors' demands from the
@AlbertWhitman
(AW&C) for transparency and immediate rectification of past-due royalties.
AW&C must immediately start accounting to and paying all royalties due as specified in authors' contracts.
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We want to thank everyone that's signed so far, including authors like
@rgay
@rebeccamakkai
@rokwon
@minjinlee11
@MarieMyungOkLee
@pronounced_ing
@mirajacob
@michaelpollan
@cmaum
@Andrew_Solomon
and more!
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The Books3 dataset contains 183,000 books, dled from pirate sources. Companies like Meta (creators of LLaMA), EleutherAI, & Bloomberg have used it to train their language models. The lawsuit in which we are a named plaintiff will determine if that’s the case for ChatGPT too.
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"“People need to decentralize in their own minds where their books come from. They need to have better education about publishing systems and then buy books and seek out books from more publishers."
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"To most working authors (and artists, screenwriters, illustrators, and so on) the fear over AI is not philosophical; it is economic, and it is existential."
An interesting piece that hits many of the crucial points regarding AI (
@latimes
).
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We celebrate the D.C. District Court’s decision to block the merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster.
This is the first time a court has recognized what we have been arguing for decades—that consolidation among publishers hurts authors.
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The NEL was making scans of IN-COPYRIGHT books available for download. Unlike real libraries, NEL didn't buy the books or license rights. It did not seek permission from authors or publishers to scan and distribute their books. 3/8
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"They were fed a diet of our works without paying a dime to us."
Our President
@mayaslang
spoke with
@bbcworldservice
about our ongoing advocacy regarding AI, including our open letter (over 10k signatures and counting!), and more.
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“The Internet Archive has wrapped its large-scale infringement enterprise in a cloak of public service, but that posture is an affront to the most basic principles of copyright law. (
@pubperspectives
).” —Maria Pallante
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"The letter further states that tech companies including OpenAI, Alphabet, Meta, Stability AI, IBM and Microsoft have spent billions to develop AI technology and that compensating the authors for using their works would be the fair move." (
@latimes
)
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If you are not covered by the class in the ongoing suits, know that the Authors Guild is still pursuing protections and compensation for all writers, from poets to memoirists to biographers to translators.
This lawsuit is only the first step.
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