{"id":474733,"date":"2026-03-14T05:52:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T05:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/474733\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T05:52:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T05:52:13","slug":"the-guardian-view-on-changes-to-copyright-laws-authors-should-be-protected-over-big-tech-editorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/474733\/","title":{"rendered":"The Guardian view on changes to copyright laws: authors should be protected over big tech | Editorial"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a scene that might have come from a dystopian novel, books were being stamped with \u201cHuman Authored\u201d logos<\/a> at this week\u2019s London Book Fair. The\u00a0Society of Authors described<\/a> its labelling scheme as \u201can important sticking plaster to protect and promote human creativity in lieu of AI labelled content\u00a0in the marketplace\u201d.<\/p>\n

Visitors to the fair were also being given copies of Don\u2019t Steal This Book<\/a>, an anthology of about 10,000 writers including Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, Malorie Blackman, Jeanette Winterson and Richard Osman, in which the pages are completely blank. The back cover states: \u201cThe UK government must not legalise book theft to benefit AI companies.\u201d The message is clear: writers have had enough.<\/p>\n

The fair comes the week before the government is due to deliver its progress report on AI and copyright<\/a>, after proposals for a relaxation of existing laws caused outrage last year. Philippa Gregory, the novelist, described<\/a> the plans for an \u201copt-out\u201d policy, which puts the onus on writers to refuse permission for their work to be trawled, as akin to putting a sign on your front door asking burglars to pass by.<\/p>\n

According to a University of Cambridge study<\/a> last autumn, almost 60% of published authors believe their work has been used to train large language models without consent or reimbursement. And nearly 40% said their income had already fallen as result of generative AI or machine-made novels, a digital incarnation of Orwell\u2019s Versificator in Nineteen Eighty-Four.<\/p>\n

Factual books are clearly most vulnerable to ChatGPT. While sales in fiction are rising (thanks largely to the boom in romantasy novels<\/a>), sales of nonfiction<\/a> were down 6% last year compared with 2024, the lowest since 2014. But three nonfiction books, all by women, bucked the trend: Nobody\u2019s\u00a0Girl<\/a>, Virginia Giuffre\u2019s posthumous memoir of abuse\u00a0by Jeffrey Epstein; A\u00a0Hymn\u00a0to\u00a0Life<\/a>,\u00a0Gis\u00e8le\u00a0Pelicot\u2019s account of her ordeal at the hands of her ex-husband; and Careless\u00a0People<\/a>, Sarah\u00a0Wynn-Williams\u2019s expos\u00e9 of working at Facebook. The success of these first-person testimonies show the powerful reach of nonfiction beyond the world of publishing. These are\u00a0painfully human stories. And readers must be able to trust in the authenticity of their voices.<\/p>\n

Last year, Sarah Hall requested that her publisher Faber, print a \u201cHuman Written\u201d stamp on her latest novel, Helm. \u201cAI might mimic the words more rapidly, but \u2026 it hasn\u2019t bled on the page,\u201d she said<\/a>. \u201cAnd it doesn\u2019t have a family to support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writers\u2019 livelihoods must not be sacrificed to the\u00a0promise of economic growth. The UK\u2019s creative industries contributed \u00a3124bn<\/a> to the UK economy in 2023, \u00a311bn from publishing<\/a>. The Society of Authors is requesting<\/a> consent and fair payment for use of work, and transparency as to how a book was \u201cwritten\u201d. These are hardly radical propositions. But in an era of fake news and AI slop, they are sadly necessary. Writers need more than sticking plasters. They need robust\u00a0legislation.<\/p>\n

A House of Lords report<\/a> published last week lays out two possible futures: one in which the UK \u201cbecomes a world-leading home for responsible, legalised artificial intelligence (AI) development\u201d and another in which it continues \u201cto drift towards tacit acceptance of large-scale, unlicensed use of creative content\u201d. One scenario protects UK artists, the other benefits global tech companies. To avoid a\u00a0world of empty content, the choice is clear.<\/p>\n

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a scene that might have come from a dystopian novel, books were being stamped with \u201cHuman Authored\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-474733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}