Enjoy, at least for a brief moment, that AI company Anthropic’s legal posturing expressing outright existential panic, as it filed a petition in early August with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for permission to appeal the certification of a broad class of copyright owners of “any book in the versions of” the pirate libraries LibGen or PiLiMi downloaded by Anthropic. This frail start-up tells the Court of Appeals it may be forced into massive settlement of billions of dollars over their theft of 7 million illegally pirated books, pleading that, “This case presents a quintessential ‘death-knell’ situation justifying immediate […]
AI
Bloomsbury Explores AI Licensing
This week, Bloomsbury began communicating with authors about potentially licensing their work for AI training, focusing on academic and professional backlist titles, the company said. The company is “inviting authors to opt-in to AI licensing opportunities,” though a tech company deal has not been finalized. “We are seeking this consent from authors in tandem with exploring various licensing opportunities so that authors who have opted in may benefit from the inclusion of their works in such licensing arrangements as Bloomsbury may consider it appropriate to enter into,” a spokesperson said. Authors would receive a royalty rate of 20 percent of […]
Johns Hopkins Press Will License Its Books to Train AI
Johns Hopkins University Press announced that it will license its books to train proprietary LLMs. The press hopes that revenue from the deals will help fill holes left by Trump administration cuts to university funding. The press did not announced which specific companies it will license the work to, but says they include “general AI companies and those focused on specialized content and inference models like Retrieval-Augmented Generation.” Johns Hopkins authors have until August 31 to opt out of the agreement and sign an addendum on their contracts, or else their work will be licensed. The publisher says they can […]
Hawley and Blumenthal Introduce AI Protection Act, As Trump Wants to Give It All Away
The theft of human creation by large AI companies is so egregious that the Senate is doing something it usually avoids at all costs — introducing legislation to clarify the landscape and protect people from the machines. Senators Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) proposed the AI Accountability and Personal Data Protection Act earlier this week, “to protect consumers’ data rights and hold Big Tech companies accountable for illegally pirating creators’ copyrighted works to train their artificial intelligence (AI) models.” Among the Act’s protections are measures to “safeguard individuals’ copyrighted materials from being used in AI training or AI-generated content […]
Lively Senate Hearing Examines AI and Copyright
On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism held a hearing on copyright and AI: “Too Big to Prosecute? Examining the AI Industry’s Mass Ingestion of Copyrighted Works for AI Training.” The AAP submitted written testimony for the hearing, which president and ceo Maria Pallante called “terrific.” Professors and copyright experts, as well as author David Baldacci, testified that tech companies’ use of copyrighted books from illegal pirate sites is unlawful and immoral—a point that members of the subcommittee seemed to agree on. (At least 12 books by members of the subcommittee, including chair Josh Hawley, are included […]
Anthropic Files for Appeal in Copyright Case
Anthropic has filed for interlocutory appeal or leave to move for reconsideration in their case brought by several authors over copyright infringement in training their LLM. Last month, Judge William Alsup ruled that Anthropic’s training with legally-obtained books was fair use, but that the company’s use of pirated books was not, and that the issue will go to trial to assess damages. Anthropic’s motion hinges on the recent decision in Kadrey v. Meta, in which Judge Vince Chhabria found in favor of Meta because the authors’ arguments of copyright infringement weren’t strong enough. Anthtropic’s lawyers state in their filing, “Judge […]