The Society of Authors (SoA) gathered outside Meta’s London HQ on Thursday (3rd April) to protest Meta’s alleged use of pirated books to train AI models.
Authors at the protest called for an inquiry into Meta, as well as calling for legal action against the tech giant.
The event’s organiser, author AJ West, a member of the SoA, planned to deliver a letter of complaint to the Meta offices. Unfortunately for the protesters, the doors to the offices were locked and they were unable to deliver the letter in person.
West said despite being unafraid of “stealing” 7.5 million books, Meta was “afraid to accept one letter”. Chants of “open the doors” and “take the letter Meta” ensued, as they attempted to give the letter to employees entering the building.
Placards at the protest included “Get the Zuck off our books” and “I’d write a better sign but you’d just steal it”. The protesters eventually decided to post the letter to the offices instead.
Writer Nick Coveney said: “It displays cowardice, but it doesn’t surprise me. Big tech often operates like this.”
West said: “Authors are not known for their direct action. What we’ve done today is a really important starting point to show that we can gather and make our voices heard. It is untenable that Prime Minister Starmer, Lisa Nandy and the government at large hasn’t acknowledged this wide-sweeping theft of protected IP. We need a dialogue with them, we need a dialogue with Meta, and then we need some form of compensation.”
He added: “They need to have an internal inquiry and then what we need is to take legal action […] I believe in a British justice system based, not on fear of grey areas, but on moral truth and morally we know that authors have been wronged […] If we need a specific law on it then the government needs to act and introduce legislation immediately.”
Continues…
In the US, Meta has appealed to the courts for a similar case against them to be dropped, citing the “fair use” defence, however, interviews conducted by The Bookseller suggested that the defence does not apply in the UK the same way that it does in the US.
Coveney said: “The concept of fair use is to protect up to 10% of the work. So ingesting an entire book is clearly not fair use […] It’s like if someone ran into a shop and stole a bike and claimed ‘I’m only using 10% of this tyre so it’s not really theft’. If they’re stealing the other 90% then that’s still theft.”
As well as compensation, he also called for Meta to give authors the opportunity to remove their IP from their systems. “Meta should be forced to scrub their systems and delete any works that they stole without payment.”
Author KJ Charles agreed that there should be a police investigation. She claimed that Meta used 25 of her novels from LibGen in the training and is keen for some compensation.
Charles said: “You know what I’d really like? I’d like some money […] The government does not have the right to give away my copyright. Mark Zuckerberg does not have the right to take my property.”
Author Sarah J Harris agreed with the call to action. She said: “We want Meta to be punished. […] There should be sanctions against them; they should be fined. They should pay all the money that they owe the authors.”
She added that: “This is a multi-billion pound company. They could have afforded to pay us but they decided not to […] If they can get away with it and nothing’s happening against Meta, then other companies will do exactly the same.”
Another author at the protest, Sita Brahmachari, said she managed to get her publisher to include a “No AI training” clause to her book. Brahmachari said: “They have refused to open the letter from the SoA and yet they have been happy to open millions of our books and to take them without any permission, without any copyright.”
The Bookseller has previously contacted Meta for comment.
