AI and book contracts

Anyone who has ever had a book traditionally published knows the joys of reading through a publisher's contract. There are some bits that make you wince (the part where they throw you to the dogs if they get sued, for example), and others that are quite pleasing (usually involving money). I've seen a good few contracts in my time, both mine and those for other authors who have asked me to cast an eye over them. (If there's anything too complex, I strongly advise authors to join the Society of Authors and make use of their checking service.) Of late, I've seen AI starting to rear its head in new clauses - and it has been a pleasant surprise.

When publishers started mentioning AI in contracts, I assumed we were talking about clauses that banned authors from using generative AI to write their books for them - and, not surprisingly, they have started to appear. (Publishers need to be careful with this one, as the contracts do need to allow the inclusion of content from AI sources as long as it's to illustrate the work of AI and labelled as such.)

But the pleasant bit is that I have also started to see clauses where the publishers themselves promise not to make use of AI in various aspects of the publishing. Here are the kind of things I've seen:

The Publisher and the Author have a mutual interest in protecting human creativity and ensuring that their respective interests in the Work are not undermined through the detrimental use of Artificial Intelligence.
The Publisher shall not use Artificial Intelligence technology to adapt the Work or create new content within the Work.
The Publisher undertakes that the cover and illustration (if any) and cover copy for the Work shall be primarily the creative work of a human. The Publisher agrees not to use AI-generated images, artwork, design, and other visual elements for the book cover or interior artwork without the Author’s prior express approval.
The Author will not license the Work for generative AI and development of machine learning models without the Publisher’s approval.
The Publisher shall not input, provide or otherwise use the whole or any part of the Work into any Artificial Intelligence technologies for the purpose of training any such technologies or for any other related purpose.

Like most legalise, it doesn't feel as simple as it ought to be. Yet it is, surely a step in the right direction. I don't know how my agreeing not to licence AI training in a contract with a publisher would prevent my work being used in this way without my knowledge... but it feels a positive move overall and I hope all publishers will be adopting a supportive approach to their authors.

There is currently a campaign in the UK Make IT Fair to stand against UK government moves to change the law to make it easier for tech companies to use British creative content in AI training without permission or payment. Find out more here, where there's a link to write to your MP.

I intended to illustrate this article with a picture of a computer tearing up a contract, produced by generative AI, which seemed amusingly ironic. But once I did it, it felt uncomfortable, so you'll have to use your own creativity to envision this. To be honest, it wasn't a very good image anyway.

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