Home / Business and Economy / AI Pays $1.5B for Stolen Books, Authors Seek Fair Share
AI Pays $1.5B for Stolen Books, Authors Seek Fair Share
5 Sep
Summary
- Tech giant to pay $3,000 per pirated book used for AI training.
- Authors and publishers dispute rights ownership in settlement.
- Textbook authors face significantly lower payouts.
A recent class-action settlement, approved in July by a judge in the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California, mandates a tech giant to pay $1.5 billion for using pirated books to train its AI chatbot. Authors stand to receive up to $3,000 for each illegally used book, totaling a significant sum in the largest copyright settlement in U.S. history.
However, the distribution of these funds is proving contentious. Authors and publishers are staking competing claims with the settlement administrator over rights ownership for many titles. While some publishers are not acting in bad faith, concerns exist about record-keeping for reverted rights, potentially impacting authors' payouts.
Textbook authors, in particular, are expressing dissatisfaction as their contracts dictate much lower percentages, sometimes between 10% and 15% of the settlement. This situation is being compared to past disputes over digital royalties in the music industry, highlighting how existing contracts may not adequately address revenues from emerging technologies like AI.
