HarperCollins Confirms It Has a Deal to Sell Authors' Work to AI Company 36
HarperCollins has partnered with an AI technology company to allow limited use of select nonfiction backlist titles for training AI models, offering authors the choice to opt in for a $2,500 non-negotiable fee. 404 Media reports: On Friday, author Daniel Kibblesmith, who wrote the children's book Santa's Husband and published it with HarperCollins, posted screenshots on Bluesky of an email he received, seemingly from his agent, informing him that the agency was approached by the publisher about the AI deal. "Let me know what you think, positive or negative, and we can handle the rest of this for you," the screenshotted text in an email to Kibblesmith says. The screenshots show the agent telling Kibblesmith that HarperCollins was offering $2,500 (non-negotiable).
"You are receiving this memo because we have been informed by HarperCollins that they would like permission to include your book in an overall deal that they are making with a large tech company to use a broad swath of nonfiction books for the purpose of providing content for the training of an Al language learning model," the screenshots say. "You are likely aware, as we all are, that there are controversies surrounding the use of copyrighted material in the training of Al models. Much of the controversy comes from the fact that many companies seem to be doing so without acknowledging or compensating the original creators. And of course there is concern that these Al models may one day make us all obsolete." Kibblesmith called the deal "abominable."
"It seems like they think they're cooked, and they're chasing short money while they can. I disagree," Kibblesmith told the AV Club. "The fear of robots replacing authors is a false binary. I see it as the beginning of two diverging markets, readers who want to connect with other humans across time and space, or readers who are satisfied with a customized on-demand content pellet fed to them by the big computer so they never have to be challenged again."
"You are receiving this memo because we have been informed by HarperCollins that they would like permission to include your book in an overall deal that they are making with a large tech company to use a broad swath of nonfiction books for the purpose of providing content for the training of an Al language learning model," the screenshots say. "You are likely aware, as we all are, that there are controversies surrounding the use of copyrighted material in the training of Al models. Much of the controversy comes from the fact that many companies seem to be doing so without acknowledging or compensating the original creators. And of course there is concern that these Al models may one day make us all obsolete." Kibblesmith called the deal "abominable."
"It seems like they think they're cooked, and they're chasing short money while they can. I disagree," Kibblesmith told the AV Club. "The fear of robots replacing authors is a false binary. I see it as the beginning of two diverging markets, readers who want to connect with other humans across time and space, or readers who are satisfied with a customized on-demand content pellet fed to them by the big computer so they never have to be challenged again."
Terms (Score:2)
Re: Unpopular opinion, once more (Score:2)
Guess that brings a new meaning to Santa coming down your chimney.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
No, I'm concerned that kids wanting a nice story about Santa will instead focus on stuff that they can't understand at their age.
There are quite a few ways to normalize gayness, for example, but this is not one.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Which of those three things is hard for children to understand?
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I agree, it shouldn't be fed to a LLM, but for different reasons than "it negatively affects the author".
So Lot stepped outside to talk to them, shutting the door behind him. 7 "Please, my brothers," he begged, "don't do such a wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two virgin daughters. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do with them as you wish. But please, leave these men alone, for they are my guests and are under my protection." 9
What is this? (Score:2)
please, the text is an excerpt from that book?
thanks for clarification
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please, the text is an excerpt from that book?
thanks for clarification
That's Genesis 19:6-8, the grandparent is pointing out that the Bible is full of objectionable content as well, presumably to question why one book should be allowed and the other disallowed if the standard being used is decency.
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thanks!
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So... you counter a shitty writing with an equally shitty writing?
How does that even work?
Or maybe you assumed I am a Bible thumper of some kind? You couldn't be farther from the truth. That ancient, stuffy book is mostly dogshit.
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But I bet that there's going to be riots if you portray him as a renegate Satanist.
Cut it out (Score:1)
Scale (Score:4, Insightful)
Because the giant AI company wants to deal with one contract with one company, not negotiate with thousands of individual authors.
Quality (Score:2)
Besides the reason explained in the post titled "Scale", the middleman corporation guarantees (kinda, sorta...) the quality of the work. :-)
Imagine being flooded with thousands of pieces of "work" - probably, you'd have to deploy some AI to figure out what to accept for learning...
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Why do you need a middleman to sell to anyone? There are answers. Some of those answers, different people will disagree about.
I guess it depends on whether you want to manage it all as a business, or just farm that out while you focus on the artistry. Different strokes for different folks.
All the publishers are going to do this. (Score:3)
At least HarperCollins was up-front about it. Some publishers are using AI for "low selling" authors' work as editors. It's being fed the text, and spitting out grammatically "fixed" versions, that are then spot-checked by newly trained editors. It's cheaper than paying an experienced editor, and who cares about low-sellers? Right? Plus? They get to train these AIs on the text being "edited."
Eventually, the hope is the trained AIs can replace the authors outright.
This is the problem with letting any artform be subject to business practices in a society that values only profit above all else. Eventually, the business becomes more important than the art. And while there may be a lot of trash going through a publisher like HarperCollins, removing the tiny bit of human touch some of those stories have is a sad testament to where we are as a people. Regurgitated trash is still regurgitated. And some of us like our trash authentically human.
I know, old man rants at cloud. But the bottom line is that if we throw art to the machines, and tell humans that all that's left in drudgery? What's the point of any of this? Is our entire purpose making profit for the oligarchs? If so? Most of us don't need to exist.
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Plus? They get to train these AIs on the text being "edited."
I don't think training an AI on unedited text (that you're going to have that same AI edit?) is going to produce positive results.
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Plus? They get to train these AIs on the text being "edited."
I don't think training an AI on unedited text (that you're going to have that same AI edit?) is going to produce positive results.
Try telling the hype-buying management that. We're already seeing some pretty horrible results, but it won't sink in to those who are true believers until it blows up spectacularly in their faces. When this bubble finally pops, it's gonna get real messy.
I'm missing something (Score:2)
If you as an author have a copyright on your work I'm not sure how this unilateral take it or leave it fee is legal. Harper Collins is essentially re-publishing your work for what amounts to pennies as part of the AI LLM, allowing your works to be leveraged for any Gen AI-created works downstream. Seems a bit one-sided in terms of negotiation.
I suggest authors with works published by Harper Collins lawyer up.
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> I'm not sure how this unilateral take it or leave it fee is legal
Huh? If it's a bad offer just say no.
Where are the damages?
Decent-ish way to handle it for such an early deal (Score:2)
Let's see:
Authors Opt-in, not opt out.
This covers non-fiction (whatever that means. Textbooks? Self-Help? History books? Old Encyclopedias?).
Compensations, while not ultra-high, is more than the pitance the music industry pays.
Getting the most U$D out of a book is part of the work an editor has to do, so, this is hardly over-reach.
Group negotiation is an usefull service for the AI company, compared to negotiation with each author individually.
What's not to like?
Contracts like these for AI training are in th
Ineligible book (Score:2)
The quoted text says "... to use a broad swath of nonfiction books ..."
The book being represented, "Santa's Husband", is clearly fiction.
condescending bs (Score:2, Insightful)
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I guess robo-rights are the new woke?
Santa's Husband?? (Score:3)
Everything is negotiable (Score:2)
Everything is negotiable. Just tell them no, $2,500 isn't enough. If they really want the content, they will eventually offer more. If you are happy with the $2,500, then take it. What is important here is that the expectation that the author needs to approve the use of their work in this way gets firmly embedded in culture as well as law, and this seems to support that. Unless of course, all of the "no" answers are ignored and the material ingested anyway (through some kind of "programming error" or "
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Better yet, organize with other authors and negotiate a royalties payment. Everyone who contributes to the LLM's training should get paid a percentage of whatever the big tech company is making on usage, or a fixed amount per use if the tech company is pretending to make zero income from it.