As the debates and discussions over all matters of rights pertaining to AI move forward, the Authors Guild has issued a lengthy statement that reiterated the organization's position that it is authors who control the rights to their work.

The statement brings together arguments the Guild has made in various forums, including comments Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger made following the news that HarperCollins was the first large trade publisher to strike an AI deal with a tech company. Rasenberger told PW that the Guild was pleased with the care HC had taken in coming to an agreement and stressed a number of points, including that the agreement gave authors the right to opt out of the deal and that agreement was a one-time arrangement and did not mean contracts give publishers the right to make AI agreements without the receiving the permission from the other.

The Guild's FYI on the topic released Friday is reprinted in full below.

AI Licensing for Authors: Who Owns the Rights and What’s a Fair Split?

The Authors Guild believes it is crucial that authors, not publishers or tech companies, have control over the licensing of AI rights. Authors must be able to choose whether they want to allow their works to be used by AI and under what terms.

AI Training Is Not Covered Under Standard Publishing Agreements

A trade publishing agreement grants just that: a license to publish. AI training is not publishing, and a publishing contract does not in any way grant that right. AI training is not a new book format, it is not a new market, it is not a new distribution mechanism. Licensing for AI training is a right entirely unrelated to publishing, and is not a right that can simply be tacked onto a subsidiary-rights clause. It is a right reserved by authors, a right that must be negotiated individually for each publishing contract, and only if the author chooses to license that right at all.

Subsidiary Rights Do Not Include AI Rights

The contractual rights that authors do grant to publishers include the right to publish the book in print, electronic, and often audio formats (though many older contracts do not provide for electronic or audio rights). They also grant the publisher “subsidiary rights” authorizing it to license the book or excerpts to third parties in readable formats, such as foreign language editions, serials, abridgements or condensations, and readable digital or electronic editions. AI training rights to date have not been included as a subsidiary right in any contract we have been made aware of. Subsidiary rights have a range of “splits”—percentages of revenues that the publisher keeps and pays to the author. For certain subsidiary rights, such as “other digital” or “other electronic” rights (which some publishers have, we believe erroneously, argued gives them AI training rights), the publisher is typically required to consult with the author or get their approval before granting any subsidiary licenses.

Authors Retain Copyright

Under copyright law, rights that are not expressly granted are generally retained by the original copyright owner. To ensure that this is clearly understood, trade publishing agreements typically include a clause stating that any rights that are not expressly granted to the publisher are reserved to the author. As such, AI rights remain with the author. Even where the publisher is granted broad rights to reproduce the work as necessary to publish it (which could include certain internal AI uses to make operations more efficient), those rights do not extend to allowing publishers to license AI companies the right to use the books in order to develop and improve their products.

Publishers Must Seek Author Permission

The Authors Guild believes that if publishers wish to license AI training rights to the books they have published, they must seek the authors’ permission by separate agreement. Authors should always have the right to turn down any deal offered to them, and must also have the right to license AI rights on their own. (Note: We recognize that some academic publishing agreements grant the entire copyright to the works to the publisher, and so legally the author retains no rights unless they are specified in the agreement. Still, as we have previously said, it is unethical and unfair to license AI rights without the author’s permission.)

Publisher Compensation Depends on AI Licensing Role

In cases where an author permits the publisher to enter into a licensing arrangement with an AI company on the author’s behalf, the publisher is entitled to a share of the revenue. That share should depend on the amount of work the publisher does in creating and implementing the deal. For example, if it is acting as an agent to facilitate licensing, it should receive the equivalent of an agent’s fee. If it is providing additional labor, such as to create the bundle to be licensed, or to create text files and/or metadata for an AI project, it is entitled to be compensated commensurately for its costs and labor. Ultimately, authors and their agents should make sure that the publisher’s percentage aligns with the work it provides and the impetus for the deal.

Authors Should Get Majority Share in AI Licensing Deals

Generally speaking, we believe, as we have previously said, that a fair split for most deals will give 75–85 percent to the author, depending on the publisher’s role. Note that some academic presses are presently offering authors a mere 25 percent, which unfairly allows the publisher to reap almost all of the benefit while leaving most of the risk to the author. In all cases, the splits must be negotiated between authors (and their agents) and publishers as a new type of use that was not contemplated under existing contracts.

Most importantly, as these licenses are outside of the original publishing agreement, the author’s share of any publisher AI licensing deal should flow directly to the author and not be applied against an advance.

Authors Guild Lawsuit Addresses Past AI Copyright Violations

Separately, the Authors Guild continues to support efforts by writers across the country to hold certain companies accountable for systematic copyright infringement. The Guild is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft based on those companies’ blatantly unfair conduct in stealing copyright protected books. The efforts by AI companies to license books for training is important but in no way addresses—and in fact confirms—past and ongoing violations, and the growing licensing market for material for AI training.