AI has taken over many sectors of the arts, its newest being literature. Meta recently caused a stir by allegedly using one of the largest pirated book libraries online, LibGen, to train its AI. The worst part? They didn’t ask for permission. 

Meta has been downloading millions of books and academic papers from LibGen, and after securing the content, Meta is teaching its robots how to write without paying for or obtaining licenses from the work.

Victoria Aveyard, a bestselling author best known for her Red Queen series, discovered that 50 of her works might’ve been downloaded by Meta to train its AI. Aveyard is understandably furious. “It’s quite a violation,” she said. For authors like her, seeing their work used without permission is a serious violation (especially when it’s by a multi-billion dollar corporation like Meta).

Aveyard’s frustration isn’t just about having her work stolen. It’s also about the economic impact. Piracy already hurts authors by lowering sales of their work, and using AI to train on pirated content makes the problem worse. “Piracy is unfortunately one of those things that threatens the livelihood of authors,” she said. It’s not just stealing, it’s also damaging the ability for writers to earn a living.

Meta has an answer for everything. In this case, they’re arguing that using copyrighted material without permission is okay because the AI transforms the work into something new. But Aveyard and other authors aren’t buying it. If AI can’t submit a paper in class, how can an AI-generated novel be considered original? 

Aveyard hopes the lawsuit against Meta leads to a law that protects creators’ rights. With AI advancing at a rapidly increasing rate, there’s a need for rules that ensure creators have control over their work and are compensated when it’s used. 

TLDR, AI isn’t going anywhere, but we cannot forget the people behind the art. A little legal oversight goes a long way in making sure creators aren’t left behind in the digital age. Read more about this developing story here.

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