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Title: HarperCollins Confirms It Has a Deal to Sell Authors' Work to AI
Company

Link: https://slashdot.org/story/24/11/18/2142209/h...

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."

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