Of the AI lawsuits that have been settled, one of them (Bartz v Anthropic) has offered a big payout to authors and publishers, but it also ruled that training AI models on legitimately acquired works is legal. That decision may not stick—other rulings may later come into conflict with it—but it’s rumored that a growing number of AI companies are now buying and scanning books to train their models.
Thus, Ingram is giving its client-publishers a way to opt out of selling their books to AI firms. Learn more in Publishers Weekly. Quite obviously, it would not be that hard to find workarounds. Author Josh Bernoff says this exercise is “futile” and won’t work, making Ingram’s opt-out more performative than anything.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
