The Irish Writers Union (IWU) plans to take legal action to protect the copyright of authors if tech companies including Meta continue to use their work for artificial intelligence (AI) without agreement.
Author Conor Kostick, a member of the IWU, said 52 of his works, including 24 books, have been “scraped”, or copied from the internet, and used by Meta’s AI model without his permission.
“We want to offer them a licensed solution and if they are prepared to talk about that then great – problem solved,” he said.
“There’s a very good chance they won’t be interested in that and if that’s the case then it’s the courts.”
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Mr Kostick said no writer has the financial resources to take on Meta.
“But we have both pro bono experts who feel the injustice of this is worth their time and also copyright organisations who are willing to at least help us scope what a legal case might look like,” he said.
On Thursday a group of Irish authors handed in a petition signed by 1,500 writers and supporters to the Minister of State for Trade Niamh Smyth – the Minister responsible for AI.
They have asked the Minister to meet Meta on their behalf to set out the copyright protections that apply in Ireland.
A spokesperson for the Minister said the Government was “closely monitoring legal policy and technical developments in the area of both copyright and AI”.
“We are actively involved in EU and international discussions to balance technological innovation with the protection of creators’ rights and we will continue to engage with industry representatives and artists on these matters.”
Copyrighted works can be used in certain circumstances, the spokesperson said, as long as the holder of the rights had not specifically opted out and the works were legally available.
Authors who spoke to The Irish Times said they had had no opportunity to opt out – in part as has been established in a class action against Meta currently before the US courts.
This is because their works were scraped from a Russian website which had illegally compiled a database comprised of millions of books, they said.
Work is ongoing on establishing the number of authors affected, says IWU chair Conor McAnally, but to date 82 writers have identified 732 works added to the Meta AI database without permission and the number was growing, he said.
The immediate financial loss “may not be huge,” he said, but there might be greater implications.
“If copyright is not respected here, then where does intellectual property begin and end with large corporations?” he said.
“This could apply to pharmaceuticals, it could apply to any organisation with respect to intellectual property. If ours isn’t respected, then whose is?”
Author Ruth O’Leary said she was shocked to discover her debut novel, The Weekend Break, published last year, had been copied.
“So then you can just tell the [AI] model: ‘I want to write a book about four Irish women who go to Galway for the weekend in the style of Ruth O’Leary.’
“And they can basically take my whole story, the whole idea, and just use it. They can translate it into Chinese, put it up on Chinese Amazon or whatever, and sell it under their own name,” she said.
Valerie Fox O’Loughlin – a writer, IWU executive member and chair of the UK’s Society of Authors – said it was particularly important the Irish Government takes action on the issue.
“Literary culture is so important in Ireland that the Irish Government has to respect the copyright involved,” she said.
