Do Copyrights Matter?

My husband has a cool job. He creates unique spaces for museum exhibits in New York City. Among my favorite of his projects over the years are: The Costume Institute and Karl Lagerfeld exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; the live-plant-wall project in the main entrance at Lincoln Center; the Tiffany Gallery in New York Historical Society; and the Anne Frank exhibit at Center for Jewish History. A bonus for me: attending the openings of all these exhibits.

At these events I meet some of New York’s movers and shakers and conversations are usually interesting. Inevitably, discussion pivots to what I do.

Can everyone be an author?

When I explain I’m an author, most people are intrigued and ask a lot of questions, but every so often someone will declare that he/she could write a book. At this point I paste on a smile and try to look interested as the person before me launches into a fifteen-minute oral dissertation of the book’s premise, plotline, characters, and theme. When I ask them how far along they are in the writing process, the answer is usually a head shake and admission that they haven’t actually begun writing.

This always makes me grit my teeth. Honestly, if you tell me you’re a lawyer, a doctor, an exterminator, or nearly any other job on the planet, it’s highly unlikely I will pipe in with, “Oh, I could do that.” I could not do those jobs because I am a writer. That is my job, and it’s not as easy as it looks. Trust me. I was offered my first contract by a traditional publisher only after writing six books over 12 years. And I’m one of the lucky ones.

---

People know this. Powerful people like Mark Zuckerberg.

He doesn’t have time (and probably not the talent since he is not a writer) to create the millions of books he needs to train AI and give his company, Meta, an advantage over the competition. But this is apparently no problem.

He allegedly took our books without offering compensation or even asking for permission, wiped the copyrights, and has turned the world’s best writers into teachers for their replacements.

AI is being trained to replace the world's best writers

Training AI and Copyrights

How can this be, you may wonder. Copyrights protect a writer’s intellectual property. . .until a trillion-dollar company decides to disregard laws. It can afford to. As intimated in a recent article in the Atlantic, it’s cheaper to compensate for the pirated intellectual property of more than 7 million writers than fall behind in the AI race. Strange set of priorities, don’t you think? Who is he protecting? Certainly not the right to create. 

There’s a saying that those who create don’t destroy, but what about those who steal creations? Destruction of lives and livelihoods can be the only outcome.

---

Will Copyrights Beat AI?

The Authors Guild is on top of this issue and a class-action lawsuit is underway.

If you think your writing was pirated, you can search the database LibGen (Library Genesis) which lists all books from “publicly available internet sources” and may have your book listed. Simply type your name into their search bar. If your book comes up, as mine did, your work has been stolen for the use of training AI.

Let’s face it, writers, photographers, and artists are the low-hanging fruit in this situation. Our work is easy to access and ripe for the picking if the plunderer can afford to disregard the law and settle their debts at a later time—once they rake in the trillions from their AI victory. We are the David to Zuckerberg’s Goliath.

But we know how that battle ended, don’t we?