AI is theft

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the publisher

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is what appears in the front of every book published by Dragon’s Roost Press. Most people skip over the front matter, it’s a boring read. We understand, you want to get to the actual book itself. 

However, these few lines contain a very important statement — namely that the author holds the rights to the material in the book and has the ultimate decision in how that material is used. This statement is the creator letting the world know that it is not acceptable for their work to be copied and sold or given away for free. 

…may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission…

Earlier today The Atlantic published the most recent in a series of articles exposing how those creating various AI tools mine pirated material to use as learning fodder for their programs. The article includes a tool to search the Library Genesis (LibGen) dataset for authors whose work was so pirated.

Click here to be taken to the article. The LibGen search engine is a page or two down.

The engineers working to create the various machine learning tools have stated publicly that things like Meta’s Llama 3 must have access to huge amounts of data — read: well written works — for their tools to work. Acquiring this legally would take time, and more importantly money. 

So these works were pirated. 

Used without authorization.

Stolen.

There have also been those who state that the information be stolen/pirated/etc (the usually say “used”) comes from well known authors who can afford to not be paid for their works. There are very few authors who live in the sales strata for which sales would not be missed. Also, it is still theft of intellectual property.

To address the claim that this only happens to the “Big Authors,” please take a moment to visit the Authors Page. Almost every single person on that page appears in the LibGen list. Not all of the titles are published by Dragon’s Roost Press, but many of them are.

Meta is taking the work of these authors and using it for their own gain without recompense, without even asking for permission.

Look at those authors again. 

Keep them in mind anytime you think about using one of these services.