Nicholas Basbanes and Nicholas Gage have filed suit against Microsoft, the latest in a series of lawsuits claiming that training OpenAI on authors’ books is copyright infringement. Like other suits, the authors highlight that the company is making billions of dollars on its AI products without any compensation for the authors whose works built them. “Defendants clearly could have obtained the capital to pay given the extraordinary investments already made and the staggering valuations now associated with these LLMs,” the complaint reads. “Defendants also could have explored financing alternatives, such as profit sharing or other mechanisms to facilitate their development […]
Today Show Read With Jenna Pick
The Read With Jenna pick for January is The Waters by Bonnie Jo Campbell.
The Silvers-Dudley Prizes
The Silvers-Dudley Prizes named their 2024 winners.
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Brennin Cummings is promoted to assistant director, marketing at Putnam.
February Indie Next List
The ABA announced the February Indie Next list, with Bride by Ali Hazelwood as its No. 1 pick.
Print Sales Finish 2023 Down Modestly
Following a strong final pre-Christmas sales week, as we reported over the holiday break, Circana Bookscan’s week 52 of 2023 print sales was about 400,000 units below the comparable week from a year ago. Better-than-expected print book sales for November and December left 2023’s total units just 2.58 percent below 2022 — at 767 million units, versus 788 million units a year ago. That puts 2023 modestly above 757 million units in 2020 and well ahead of 2019’s 697 million units from the “before times.”