#authors guild

Ryan Adamczeski at The Advocate:

A judge in Florida has sided with authors and publishers in a lawsuit against the state's book ban, determining that the law violates free speech protections. Judge Carlos Mendoza of the U.S. Middle District Court of Florida ruled Wednesday that "the removal of many of these books [is] unconstitutional," noting that "many are classics, modern award winners, and tested on AP exams."

"None of these books are obscene," Mendoza wrote. "The restrictions placed on these books are thus unreasonable in light of the purpose of school libraries. And if so, the presence of these books in school libraries certainly does not materially and substantially disrupt the work and discipline of the school."

The Florida state legislature passed HB 1069 in 2023, expanding the state's "Don't Say Gay" bill that prohibits discussion of LGBTQ+ identities from kindergarten to high school. The bill also required that schools remove books that contain “sexual content" — a benchmark that was disproportionately applied to materials containing themes about race, gender, or sexuality.

Penguin Random House, PEN America, the Authors Guild, and parents in the Escambia County School District filed a lawsuit against the bill, asserting that it violated the First Amendment as well as the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. They were joined by five authors whose books were removed from school libraries or challenged; Sarah Brannen (Uncle Bobby’s Wedding), George Johnson (All Boys Aren’t Blue), David Levithan (Two Boys Kissing), Kyle Lukoff (When Aidan Became a Brother and Too Bright to See), and Ashley Hope Pérez(Out of Darkness).

I’m really happy to see the writers strike Sag-Aftra might result in a new and better contract. Its also been wonderful to see all the support of major authors to the cause (Neil Gaiman has been particularly engaged). But I’m really sad to see that yet a new #AI theft of author work has happened… thousands of books (including mine) were used without #consent to train AI for Data3/The Pile. Chuck Wendig and Lance Parkin first brought it to my attention; I’m furious about this. There is class action suit, and the Authors Guild and agents are working on new contract language to try and stop this from occurring, but much damage has already been done. There is an open letter link in this article with a petition to sign; more information here:

That bit is extra important because it is next to impossible to copyright an author’s voice or writing style, but it’s possible to use generative AI to replicate it to a near-perfect match, meaning AI users could choose to just get a free machine replication for what an author’s new work might look like rather than supporting the author themselves. It’s essentially as if you were to pirate the books with a few extra steps, and you’re not even reading the real author’s hard work. Add in the possibility of those AI generations being sold as novels under a different name, and you’re looking at a MAJOR financial impact on authors.

From the Authors Guild website:

Margaret Atwood, the celebrated Canadian novelist, articulated a critical view of artificial intelligence, stating its output is fundamentally “garbage in, garbage out” during her appearance at the Babell Literary Festival. This assessment stemmed from her first direct interaction with an AI system, specifically Claude, where she provided a writing prompt and evaluated the generated text. Her…