Source: The Guardian 

In a context of growing concern about the misuse of literary works in the field of artificial intelligence, a group of prominent British authors, including Richard Osman, Kazuo Ishiguro, Kate Mosse and Val McDermid, have issued an open letter calling on the UK government to hold Meta, Facebook’s parent company, accountable for using copyrighted books to train its artificial intelligence models. The letter, addressed to Lisa Nandy, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, demands that Meta’s senior executives be summoned to parliament to address this issue.

The letter emphasises the contractual obligation of third parties to compensate authors for the use of their works. In this regard, McDermid has stated: ‘I am a crime writer, I understand theft when I see it’. This statement highlights the perception among authors that Meta’s use of unauthorised material constitutes a form of theft, as they are benefiting financially at the expense of the original creators. The revelation that Meta may have used the controversial ‘shadow library’, LibGen, which contains more than 7.5 million books, has intensified these concerns.

From a legal perspective, the signatories of the letter argue that the practice of ‘scraping’ authors’ works in order to train generative AI models represents a clear infringement of copyright legislation in the United Kingdom.Despite current intellectual property legislation, authors are in a vulnerable position when faced with the high costs and complexity of litigation against corporations with significant resources.

The statement, endorsed by the Society of Authors (SoA), has been published on Change.org as a petition that has collected nearly 5,000 signatures. The authors emphasise that government inaction could have a catastrophic and irreversible impact on their rights and economic interests. Meta is required to provide a detailed response to the allegations of infringement and to guarantee respect for copyright, as well as compensation for historical infringements.

For its part, Meta has defended its position, arguing that fair use of protected materials is fundamental to the development of its generative AI technology, although the authors insist that this does not justify the infringement of their rights.