Australian writers, literary agents, and the industry’s peak body have expressed their concerned after Black Inc Books asked its authors to consent to their work being used to train artificial intelligence.
The Melbourne publisher, which produces The Quarterly Essay as well as fiction and nonfiction by prominent Australian writers, gave them until today to enter into third-party agreements with an unnamed AI company.
The writers were asked to grant Black Inc “the right to reproduce or use, adapt and exploit the work in connection with the development of any software program, including, without limitation, training, testing, validation and the deployment of a machine learning or generative artificial intelligence system”.
The deal sees the publisher split the net receipts with the author 50/50.
The Guardian has confirmed a number of writers published by Black Inc received the request to alter their contracts last week.
The documents sent by the company’s publishing coordinator promise that, by authorising their works to be used by an unspecified AI company, authors would unlock “new revenue streams” with their works receiving “increased visibility and credibility”.
“I feel like we’re being asked to sign our own death warrant,” said Laura Jean McKay, author of Holiday in Cambodia, published with Black Inc a decade ago and shortlisted for three literary awards.
McKay says she received the addendum to her contract on Friday, and was worried that three business days was not long enough to decipher what copyright Black Inc was asking her to sign.
“I was very concerned that there was absolutely no prior discussion … this is a very unregulated frontier that we’re moving into. And the Australian government still doesn’t have clear guidelines and has no real regulations for generative AI.”
Veteran agent Lyn Tranter, owner of Australian Literary Management, said she was “totally and utterly perplexed” by the publisher pursuing consent from its stable of writers in that timeframe.
“It’s a serious matter. [AI] is not included in the original contract, so an addendum has to be done, and I think that’s something that has to be treated seriously and looked into and weighed up,” she said.
“To be honest, I don’t think they [Black Inc] know what they’re doing.”
The Australian Society of Authors said Black Inc’s request for its authors to agree to such a broad grant of rights within four days was “outrageous”.
“What is the rush?” asked the ASA’s chief executive Lucy Hayward.
“We don’t know who Black Inc will sub-license to, what conditions they will impose, or what the fee will be. Asking for blanket permission for all future licensing – particularly under time pressure – is unnecessary and unfair.”
Hayward also said the 50/50 split – similar to the offer HarperCollins put before its stable of writers last year – did not represent fair compensation.
“The ASA supports the US Authors Guild’s guidance on a fair split for AI licensing deals – 75% to the author and 25% to the publisher on the basis that it is the authors’ expression and ideas – the text – that are of most value in AI training, and it is authors’ and illustrators’ work that is likely to be displaced or supplanted by this technology,” she said.
A statement from Black Inc’s head of marketing and publicity, Kate Nash, said the opt-in agreement granted it permission to negotiate the terms and conditions it deemed reasonable with “reputable” AI companies. The statement did not say which AI companies it was negotiating with.
Nash said “many” writers had already granted Black Inc permission to sub-license their work in this way.
“We believe authors should be credited and compensated appropriately and that safeguards are necessary to protect ownership rights in response to increasing industrial automation.”
Melbourne literary agent Jenny Darling questioned why publishers were brokering deals with AI companies at all.
“Publishers are in the business of publishing books,” Darling said. “Why are they entering into agreements with AI companies? Is their business not big enough, don’t they know how to make money publishing books any more?”
Or more bluntly from Tranter: “The industry is in such serious shit at the moment … what with the takeover of Text and Affirm, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. I spoke to [a publishing colleague] and he said to me, ‘You know, we’re dead. You know, it’s just going down the toilet’.”
Journalist Hamish McDonald, whose second book published by Black Inc – Melanesia: Travels in Black Oceania – is due to be released later this month, said the AI deal came “out of the blue”.
“They want us to all sign by tomorrow,” he said on Monday.
“I’m asking Black Inc for more information. I won’t be signing anything yet.”
McKay said the vagueness of the offer was understandable “because I don’t think they actually know what they’re getting into”.
“This is uncharted territory. It’s an unregulated sort of wild west climate of AI advancement … it’s a notoriously and purposefully unregulated industry. And trillion-dollar companies like Meta and Google and Telegram are stridently oppositional to regulation.”
The Australian government has so far only conducted an inquiry into the use of AI in the Australian education system, with the house standing committee on employment, education and training releasing its final report last August.
The UK government has just completed a 10-week consultation period examining how to redraft copyright laws in the publishing industry to adjust to AI technology.
