Anyone familiar with the publishing industry knows HarperCollins as one of the Big Five publishing houses. Home to over 120 imprints, the publisher releases approximately 10,000 new titles every year and features a current catalog of over 200,000 books.
HarperCollins’ Take on the Matter
A representative of the company who spoke with the independent media outlet, 404 Media, said on Monday, they’re branching out into the world of AI training — using their authors’ previously published titles as the training materials.
The HarperCollins representative said in a statement:
“HarperCollins has reached an agreement with an artificial intelligence technology company to allow limited use of select nonfiction backlist titles for training AI models to improve model quality and performance. While we believe this deal is attractive, we respect the various views of our authors, and they have the choice to opt in to the agreement or to pass on the opportunity.”
The statement went on to say:
“HarperCollins has a long history of innovation and experimentation with new business models. Part of our role is to present authors with opportunities for their consideration while simultaneously protecting the underlying value of their works and our shared revenue and royalty streams. This agreement, with its limited scope and clear guardrails around model output that respects author’s rights, does that.”
HarperCollins’ representative, 404 Media
HarperCollins has remained silent on the name of the “artificial intelligence technology company” mentioned in their statement and what the AI model will be used for in the future.
HarperCollins Authors React
While HarperCollins’ authors are given the choice to opt into the program or refuse to have their works used for the training, this program and its announcement, nevertheless, sent shockwaves through the community of authors who have previously published under the company and their imprints. Daniel Kibblesmith, Colbert writer and author of the HarperCollins-published picture book Santa’s Husband, shared screenshots on the social media platform Bluesky of an email he received regarding the use of his work for AI training.
Abominable.
— Daniel Kibblesmith (@kibblesmith.com) November 15, 2024 at 11:36 AM
“Abominable,” Kibblesmith captioned the post, noting that he was offered $2,500 per book for a license period of three years. Kibblesmith adamantly refused the offer in a reply email, also screenshotted. In a written statement to the AV Club, he elaborated on his disgust with the offer and the tone of the original email, implying that being paid for his work to be licensed for AI training is preferable to the work being stolen for the same purpose.
“It seems like they think they’re cooked, and they’re chasing short money while they can. I disagree. The fear of robots replacing authors is a false binary. I see it as the beginning of two diverging markets, readers who want to connect with other humans across time and space, or readers who are satisfied with a customized on-demand content pellet fed to them by the big computer, so they never have to be challenged again.”
Daniel Kibblesmith, Bluesky
Children’s book author and illustrator Kaz Windness took to Instagram reels to share her reaction to the Literary Hub‘s coverage of the news, stating that she “never thought [she’d] be glad that [she’s] not published by HarperCollins.”
Windness points out that the $2,500 payment is “per title,” and therefore presumably split between all creators of the books, such as the author and the illustrator for picture books. She also raises the point that, under this licensing agreement, illustrated books could have their original artwork scraped for AI training as well.
Fellow author-illustrator Mike Petrik replied to Windness’s post, saying, “All other publishers need to quickly call out [HarperCollins] and draw the line in the sand.” Indeed, one of the other Big Five publishing houses did that very thing last month. As reported by The Bookseller, Penguin Random House took a firm stance against its content being used for training AI systems by changing the copyright wording for all titles across every one of its imprints. The copyright now has an amendment that states: “No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner to train artificial intelligence technologies or systems.”
At a time when AI is becoming more prevalent in creative fields, it’s little surprise that creators are reacting with dismay over their art being repurposed to train machine learning models, particularly for the eventual creation of AI-produced content. This is made all the more poignant by the assertion in the email to Kibblesmith that hundreds of authors “have already agreed to HarperCollins'” offer. “If you are selling out like this,” Windness says in her video, “shame on you! We do not hurt each other.”
For more information on the present state of AI in the publishing industry, check out our breakdown of the 2024 Publishers Weekly Report.
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