Society of Authors writes to AI firms demanding 'appropriate remuneration' and consent for authors

The Society of Authors (SoA) has written to tech companies including Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, Apple and Meta demanding they seek agreement from authors before using their work in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) systems.

The letter on behalf of the SoA’s more than 12,000 members asserts that “they do not authorise or otherwise grant permission for the use of any of their copyright-protected works’” in relation to the “training”, development and operation of generative AI systems.

It states that without the licence or consent of the author, the use of copyright works by AI developers “amounts to copyright infringement”, with further infringement happening “where the AI model is used to generate a work […] which reproduces the whole or a substantial part of the copyright work”.

The SoA says such practices are “plainly against UK law as well as international copyright regulations”. The SoA urges these companies, instead, to “agree terms on a commercial basis with respective rightsholders” through licensing opportunities. 

The letter states: “Our members have instructed us to put you on express notice that they do not authorise or otherwise grant permission for the use of any of their copyright-protected works in relation to, without limitation, the training; development; or operation of AI models (including the generation of Infringing Works), by large language models or other generative AI models, unless they have first specifically agreed licensing arrangements for the use of their work.”

The SoA’s members agreed to write to tech companies on this issue at an extraordinary general meeting in May. They voted in favour of a resolution asserting that they do not consent to generative AI developers using their works. The Creative Rights Alliance (CRA) issued a similar letter to tech companies on behalf of its member organisations (including the SoA), which represent over 500,000 creators, earlier in August. 

The SoA’s letter gives tech companies seven days to respond to acknowledge receipt and 21 days to offer a “substantive response”. It requests the identification of “works which have been used to date to develop AI models”, and that tech firms provide a system for requests for permission to use authors’ works and offer “appropriate remuneration”. 

It also requests that tech companies “remove any work which has been used without permission from your system and will provide evidence of compliance". 

The SoA highlights that “significant number of copyright-protected works” have been used without consent, transparency around data sets or any renumeration for rightsholders and creators, to "train", develop and operate generative AI systems.  

It warns that this “continues to cause great harm to creators’ livelihoods and jeopardises the future of the profession, which in turn threatens our creative industries and our cultural capital”.

A recent House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee enquiry into Large Language Models report supports the fact that tech firms should not use copyright-protected works without permission or compensation, and that these firms should seek licences and create transparency for rightsholders.

Earlier this week, lawyers acting on behalf of authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson filed a copyright infringement case in California, US, claiming Anthropic had used “pirated” copies of their books to teach its AI chatbot, Claude.

This is the latest in a series of legal cases where AI firms stand accused of using authors’ material to teach large language models (LLMs) without their consent, or by using allegedly stolen copies of their books. 

In July, academics hit out at Taylor & Francis (T&F) for selling access to its authors’ research as part of a partnership with Microsoft worth $10m, with parent firm Informa’s half-year financial results later revealing that it was set to earn £58m ($75m) from selling access to its authors’ work to AI firms.

Two further academic publishers—Wiley and Oxford University Press—subsequently confirmed they have made deals with, or are considering working with AI companies, with Wiley revealing in its latest trading update that it earned $23m from giving an unnamed company access to its content to train its LLMs.