Repost of an article from the ASA’s newsletter

Black Inc. AI licensing – what authors need to know

The ASA has heard from concerned writers who have been asked by their publisher, Black Inc, to opt in to a sublicence arrangement that would allow Black Inc. to license their work for generative AI training. As reported today in The Guardian, the writers have been asked to sign this broad grant of rights within a number of days, with a 50/50 split of net receipts offered as compensation. The ASA shares authors’ profound concerns about this deal and believes it is vital that authors seek advice before signing any AI licensing agreements, especially if they do not understand or are unsure of the implications.

We support publishers exploring appropriate licensing, but they must bring their authors along with them and treat authors’ work and intellectual property with the respect it deserves.

While we welcome the fact that Black Inc’s offer is an opt-in arrangement and authors’ permission is explicitly required, Black Inc has not provided enough information for authors to evaluate the reasonableness of the deal and the remuneration on offer, nor the time to review the offer and seek legal advice. Asking for blanket permission for all future licensing – particularly with only days to sign – is unnecessary and unfair. Authors ought to be entitled to evaluate the pros and cons of each sublicence on its merits. The ASA has long recommended that sublicences are subject to author approval on a case-by-case basis and this is no different.

In our view, there should be reasonable limitations set upon the licence including a veto right, consultation right, or at the very least a notification right for authors in respect of any licensing deals their publisher plans to enter into with AI companies. Publishers should provide transparent information about any limitations on the use of the licensed work, as well as assurances about how an authors’ moral rights are going to be respected.

The compensation terms must also be reasonable. In our view, a 50/50 split does not represent fair compensation. The ASA supports the US Authors Guild’s guidance on a fair split for AI licensing deals – 75% to the author and 25% to the publisher on the basis that it is the authors’ expression and ideas – the text – that are of most value in AI training, and it is authors’ and illustrators’ work that is likely to be displaced or supplanted by this technology. What’s more, increasingly authors have access to direct licensing opportunities, such as that offered by Created By Humans. Why sign away 50% of the future potential earnings to their publisher if authors can licence their work directly?

We know that many of our members may feel ambivalent about entering into these arrangements because, on one hand, they are being asked to put their work into the hands of billion dollar tech companies like Google and Open AI who have already taken and used their books for AI training, without permission or payment. The lack of transparency from these companies in respect of AI training also makes these deals incredibly difficult to evaluate – what incentive does an AI company have to renew a licence if the works have already been used to train their model? On the other hand, licensing could represent a welcome new income stream for Australian authors, who earn on average just $18,200 per annum from their creative practice. 

We know that authors are not making this decision in a vacuum. Given the context of unreasonable time pressure, the power imbalance between publisher and author, and an emerging crisis in independent publishing, we understand some authors may feel as if saying no to such arrangements risks their relationship with their publisher. To that we would say, authors are the backbone of the publishing industry; it is on their intellectual property that publishers’ businesses are built. 

What can I do?

It is essential that authors seek advice before signing if they have any questions about these arrangements, whether the offer comes from Black Inc, HarperCollins, or any other publisher entering into AI licensing deals. Access the ASA’s free Member Advice Service, seek legal advice through Authors Legal, or review our guidelines for authors on AI.

Copyright Agency Board appointment

Copyright Agency Chair Dr Kate Harrison welcomes Sophie Cunningham to the Board. The appointment was announced at the Annual General Meeting on Monday, 21 November 2022.

Ms Cunningham was nominated by the Australian Society of Authors (ASA) and joins the board as one of two ASA nominee directors. She takes the place of outgoing author director Anne Maria Nicholson, who has served on the Board since November 2019.

Dr Harrison says, “I’m delighted to welcome Sophie to the Copyright Agency. Her significant service to Australia’s literature landscape is renowned, having received a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2019 Queen’s Birthday Honours. Working for more than 30 years across all disciplines of the Australian publishing sector as an author of four books, a former editor of Meanjin, a founding member of the Stella Prize and the current Chair of the Literature Strategy Panel of the Australia Council, Sophie brings a unique level of experience and knowledge that will be invaluable to the Board.”

Dr Harrison thanked Anne Maria Nicholson for her tremendous and dedicated service to the Board and acknowledged the recent appointment of Professor Matthew Ricketson as the other serving Author Member on the Board.

“Copyright Agency is now entering an exciting period. After establishing new systems that reflect the digital era, we are looking forward to working constructively with our customers and Members to facilitate broad access to content on fair terms that support the sustainability of Australia’s creative industries,  and continue to foster the interests of Australian creators as they inspire the next generation of Australians,” adds Dr Harrison.

This Devastating Fever

This Devastating Fever will be published in September 2022.

A novel some 16 years in the making, the spark for This Devastating Fever came when Sophie Cunningham first read Leonard Woolf’s work in 2004. Struck by the atmosphere his writing evoked of an England lunging towards the first world war, Cunningham found herself reminded of the tension in the West after 9/11.

Woolf’s prescience continued over the decades, across the collapse of empire and two world wars. As her fascination with him grew, Cunningham pursued resonances, both personal and global, between the early years of the 1900s and the early years of the 2000s.

Mirroring Cunningham’s own writing journey, a modern-day author, Alice Fox, attempts to write a novel about Leonard Woolf but often finds herself derailed by the distractions of modern living. Through Fox’s at times hapless journey, Cunningham encourages the reader to examine deeper questions about colonial history, racism and what it is like to live through wars, plagues and natural disasters as well as the complexities of what it means to live a full, loving and creative life.

Deeply wry and stunningly original, This Devastating Fever is an observation of what sustains humanity–love, art, nature and history–as well as a reminder of the continual relationship between our past, our present and our future.

First readers

“It takes a phenomenal control of craft, and a keenly honed intelligence, to do what Cunningham has done with this novel: to interrogate politics and art and culture, to take on love and sex and suffering and loyalty, while all the while ensuring that the reader remains buoyant and captivated by narratives that leap across space and time ... I loved this book. I absolutely loved it.” – Christos Tsiolkas (author of The Slap and 7 1⁄2)

“This Devastating Fever is both timely and timeless, a sophisticated work of fiction that addresses the anxieties of the present moment as well as the most profound questions of history, art, love and loss. A magnificent novel." – Emily Bitto (author of The Strays and Wild Abandon)

“This Devastating Fever is remarkable: a thrillingly original, deeply emotional exploration of the complex echoes of history set in the shadow of the looming catastrophe of the future. Sinuous, strange, utterly compelling, it is like no other book you’ll read this year.” – James Bradley (author of Ghost Species and The Resurrectionist)

“This Devastating Fever is thrillingly audacious fiction. Sophie Cunningham’s entwined subjects are profound – Leonard Woolf and colonialism, the crises of the present day, the challenges of creative work – and she writes commandingly and inventively about them all. The result is an extraordinary novel.” – Michelle de Kretser (author of Questions of Travel and Scary Monsters)

Book deal with Ultimo Press

Ultimo Press has acquired world rights to a new novel by Sophie Cunningham in a two-book deal brokered by Jane Novak at Jane Novak Literary Agency.

Cunningham’s first novel in 15 years, This Devastating Fever ‘explores how hard people fight to live creative lives even when they find themselves at the outset of war, or living through a pandemic, caught up in bushfires, or political turmoil. At its core, however, it is a novel about persistence and love—the mysterious, the beautiful, the strange threads that connect people.’

‘I’m so pleased, and proud, that This Devastating Fever – my novel about turmoil, art and the complex ways in which people choose to love – has been finished and is to be published,’ said Cunningham. ‘The project has been close to my heart for many years. And I love that a novel that includes the founders of Hogarth Press, Virginia and Leonard Woolf, should be published by a small independent publishing house. I couldn’t be more excited to be working with the team at Ultimo Press.’

Melbourne-based Cunningham is the author of seven books including the novels Geography and Bird (both Text). A former publisher and editor, she is now an adjunct professor at RMIT University’s Non/fiction Lab. In 2019 Cunningham was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her contributions to literature.

Ultimo commissioning editor Brigid Mullane said: ‘I am so honoured that my first fiction acquisition for Ultimo is from the literary powerhouse Sophie Cunningham. This Devastating Fever is lyrical, fierce and funny—and it is beyond a privilege to bring it to the world.’

This Devastating Fever will be published in September 2022 with the second book to follow in 2024.