If you’re a writer, you likely know about the lawsuit against Anthropic, where authors of books that were stolen to create large language models sued for copyright infringement.
Despite the lawsuit’s success in winning a $1.5 billion payout, even the people involved admit that the fight against AI is long from over. There is reason to be concerned that these massive companies can just write off payouts as the cost of doing business until there is actual regulation, but waiting for those protections to materialize before publishing means putting your dreams on hold indefinitely.
Luckily there are a few key places to look to find out what might be happening to your words without your permission. And when you have that knowledge, you’ll be better equipped to protect your work.
Read Your Contracts
If you are taking a traditional path to publishing, there is going to be a point when the publisher gives you a contract to sign. While it would be nice to think that publishers would inherently want to protect writing as an art form, you can never be too sure, and the stakes are too high to take anything for granted.
You might know to read your contracts, and to have your agent read your contracts, but you might want to expand that circle to a lawyer. Depending on how resourced your agency is, they might have an in-house lawyer to check it over, and they might have proactively developed anti-AI language they put in all of their clients’ contracts. Talk to your agent about your concerns, seek out legal counsel, and make it clear to your agency that at least one of their clients would support a company-wide AI policy if they don’t already have one.
If you’re an independent author, you need to read the small print of whatever service you’re using to host your work. If you’re using a big platform like Amazon, there is likely some degree of press coverage around this issue, and you should be able to dig up any relevant passages in your terms and conditions, possibly without needing a lawyer’s consultation. If you’re using a smaller platform, you should reach out directly to the staff and ask. In this highly charged conversation, you will not be the first person to ask, and they should be ready with an answer.
Hide Your Drafts
While it’s a novel idea for us today, hundreds of years from now, people will cite the phrase “If you aren’t paying for it, you are the product” as some kind of ancient proverb. Referring to services like Google and social media platforms, the idea is that we should be mindful of how valuable personal information is to big corporations.
For example, if you don’t deny cookies while surfing the web, data brokers can use your browsing behavior to show you targeted ads. That’s why it’s free to do a search on Google but if you look up “what’s the best toaster” once, you’ll be inundated with toaster ads for weeks.
Google tools are incredibly popular for writers because the Google Docs app is an easy way to protect your writing via the cloud. Not only can you access your draft from any internet-connected device, anywhere in the world, but if you spill coffee all over your laptop and fry your hard drive, your work will be safe.
But does that convenience come at a cost?
Google itself says no, it does not steal your Google Docs material for AI training, but it would be wise to be a bit wary. Word processors like Scrivener come at a one-time cost and give you options to back up your work to cloud services like Dropbox. Paranoia isn’t the worst trait to have while dealing with major corporations, and a one-time payment for an independent word processor might be worth it. Or, even better, go back to pen and paper for your rough drafts and notes!
The Company You Keep
It feels like the Wild West out here in publishing today, with a wide range of opinions on what constitutes appropriate use of AI tools and what AI even means; after all, isn’t spell-check a form of AI?
Some people like to cite services like spell-check or professional-grade coding tools as evidence that anyone who argues against AI is a hypocrite fighting a losing battle. But there’s a big difference between getting help spelling the word lieutenant and opting out of the actual work of creative writing.
Even if your agent or publisher is willing to put anti-AI language into your contract, you should see it as a red flag if they would have been willing to resell your work to a tech giant had you not spoken up. If your self-publishing platform promises not to break your story into parts to feed the machine but is happy to sell AI slop on the same digital shelf as your work, then you deserve better.
Stay Educated, Stay Sane
While many artists are rightfully upset about what tech billionaires are doing to their industry, it's important not to let your resentment eat up your life. If you start to find it hard to engage in writing stories without feeling dismay that it’s all for nothing, then the chatbots win.
Try to stay up to date on big news items, preferably from reputable news sources rather than your other angry friends on social media. Make yourself knowledgeable enough to protect your work but then unplug, go outside, and continue to lead the kind of rich, full life that will fuel your inimitable human creativity.
Chelsea Ennen is a writer living in Brooklyn with her husband and her dog. When not writing or reading, she is a fiber and textile artist who sews, knits, crochets, weaves, and spins.
