Meta used my books to train its AI

Yesterday The Atlantic reported on the latest in the Meta AI hearings, breaking the story that unsealed employee communications revealed that not only did Meta knowingly use stolen content from the piracy site LibGen, it was Mark Zuckerberg who okayed it.

Authors can check the tool The Atlantic put together to see if their work was used.

There’s a class-action lawsuit against Meta, Open AI, Microsoft, and other companies. If your work was used to train AI, you’re already included in the lawsuits. (There’s no need to join Authors Guild or take any further action at this time.) Right now courts are determining whether Meta, Open AI, et al violated copyright.

15 of my titles were used. I checked LibGen using a mirror site and they have over 20 of my titles. (I don’t recommend doing this, because the mirror sites are full of garbage and porn pop-ups and sketchy redirects. I don’t know how to check LibGen directly. Big props to The Atlantic for putting together tools for both waves of this!)

I’ve always looked at piracy the same. Yeah, it sucks that sometimes people don’t pay me for my books. I’ve got medical issues and bills like everyone else, and I really like to eat. The thing about pirates is, if you send one DMCA takedown, two more will pop up in its place. I’d rather spend my time writing. I like to think that piracy helps readers discover my books. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. I do have readers who buy my books and stuff, and my platform continues to grow every year.

This is different, though. These corporations are directly profiting off their AI and therefore artists’ work, without compensating us. We didn’t have a choice in contributing (I for sure would’ve declined had they asked and made me an offer).

And it won’t stop at books.

If Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft, and other corporations are allowed to use artists’ work without consent, compensation, or consequence, they’ll also use people’s medical information and other personal and even private data.

This is bigger than books.

Photo by Andrea De Santis on Unsplash