The academic publisher Taylor & Francis, a subsidiary of Informa, has come under fire from its own authors after partnering with Microsoft in an AI deal worth $10 million. The agreement grants Microsoft access to the publisher’s vast repository of “advanced learning content and data.” However, the backlash has intensified as authors reveal they were neither consulted nor offered any form of compensation.
Dr. Ruth Alison Clemens, a literature lecturer at Leiden University, voiced her concerns to the Bookseller, pointing out a major communication gap. “I only found out about this via word of mouth in the past few days. I was shocked that they had not publicised this more widely to their authors, as the use of AI and LLMs is a prominent concern for academic researchers today,” Clemens expressed. She criticised the publisher for not implementing a functional opt-out policy, stating, “as they did not inform their authors about the deal in the first place, any opt-out policy is now not functional.”
Read: Authors launch new lawsuit against Microsoft and OpenAI
In response, Taylor & Francis assured that they are “protecting the integrity of our authors’ work and limits on verbatim text reproduction, as well as authors’ rights to receive royalty payments in accordance with their author contracts.”
The industry’s reaction has been a mix of scepticism and outrage. Sam Missingham, founder of The Empowered Author, questioned the publisher’s strategy on X: “I’ve NO idea if conversation went like this – can we pay u £8m to feed all your content into our learning machines that aim to do you out of business in a few years?”
Adding to the critical voices, Paul Langley, Professor of Economic Geography at Durham University, commented on the broader implications for academic works: “Academic books are no longer just commodities to be sold by publishers. They are also assets held by publishers for the expropriation of data rents.”
Author and journalist James McConnachie wrote: “Authors: check your contracts! Ask your publisher about their AI policy.”
The Society of Authors (SoA) urged authors who “find their work has been used without their consent” to reach out for guidance and participate in a survey by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), which is exploring collective licencing options for authors.
Read: More nonfiction authors added to lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft
In a statement, the SoA said: “In this currently unregulated landscape, we are very concerned to see publishers signing deals with tech companies without consulting their authors and creators first.
“There are substantial copyright, moral rights and data protection questions that need to be addressed, as well as ethical questions about transparency and fairness of payment from (authorised) uses of creators’ works by AI tech companies.
“The impact of such uses on traditional sales of authors’ works – and authors’ professional futures more widely – must be considered.”
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