The proliferation of generative artificial intelligence in recent years has sparked a crisis in the writing community, as hundreds of thousands of books have been “scraped” to train the large language models (LLMs) that power programs like ChatGPT. Numerous lawsuits have been filed against AI companies by media companies and coalitions of authors, arguing that text cannot be used without obtaining consent from copyright holders and paying them.
The developers of Created by Humans (CbH), which became available to all authors in mid-January, propose a solution for writers concerned about AI’s appropriation of their work. The San Francisco–based company negotiates licensing agreements between authors and AI companies, providing remuneration for written work and control over its use. Best-selling authors Viet Thanh Nguyen, Susan Orlean, and James Patterson have all signed up.
Cofounder Trip Adler came up with the idea for CbH as an equitable way to end these legal battles. “I didn’t like seeing all this conflict,” says Adler, who previously cofounded Scribd, an enormous digital document library available for a monthly subscription fee. “I started [CbH] to bridge the two worlds of authors and AI companies.”
Authors of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, both traditionally published and self-published, can upload their books to the platform and choose how AI companies may use them. Adler explains that the sale of training rights in effect licenses these books for consumption by LLMs. Reference rights permit small excerpts to appear in searches or be quoted in text. Transformative rights, an option CbH has not yet launched, will allow chatbots to write in the style of the book, perhaps conjuring a different ending, a sequel, or an interactive experience for fans. Adler anticipates transformative-rights deals will involve a one-on-one negotiation between the author and the AI company so that the author’s boundaries are respected.
Authors sign a standard contract that allows CbH to negotiate with AI companies on their behalf, but authors can opt out of a proposed contract for any reason. The platform will soon be open to agents, who could bring their authors on board. CbH is creating infringement-monitoring tools that will notify authors if their books are not used as agreed upon. These tools will protect all books uploaded to CbH’s system, even if authors do not want their books licensed.
Adler anticipates that authors will be paid in proportion to their books’ sales figures, and that payment will range from hundreds to thousands per deal. The field is so new, even he cannot predict exactly how much. But for comparison’s sake, a recent AI licensing deal between HarperCollins and Microsoft will pay $5,000 per book, half of which goes to the author. For many authors, that is not enough: The announcement triggered an outpouring of criticism on social media.
But Adler believes authors will be happy with the amounts they clear with CbH. Considering the number of LLMs that need training, even smaller deals could add up quickly. “If we can redirect a small amount of AI investment to authors, that would be a large amount of money,” he says.
In October, the Authors Guild announced a nonexclusive partnership with CbH to ensure that writing remains a viable career in the age of AI. The group helped create the standard contract between authors and CbH and is encouraging its more than fifteen thousand members to participate. The organization still recommends that authors consult with their agent or an attorney to ensure their book contracts give them the power to license AI rights.
“Books are incredibly important training data for LLMs,” says Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild and a CbH advisory board member. “The AI companies have scraped them from pirate websites to cheaply generate new content that floods the marketplace. What’s at stake is the future of the writing profession, honestly.”
Douglas Preston, president of the Authors Guild from 2019 to 2023 and a founding author of CbH, believes AI licensing will be a robust and enduring revenue stream for writers, because every new version of an LLM needs to be trained from scratch. If the old LLM is used to teach the new version, the occasional errors inherent in outputs, called hallucinations, become amplified. “ChatGPT4 cannot be built on ChatGPT3,” he says. “It’s breathing on fumes.”
The two class-action lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft, filed in 2023, that the Authors Guild is supporting may be decided by this winter, according to Rasenberger. But even if the courts rule that scraping pirated books to train LLMs is legal, Adler is certain it will not undercut CbH’s business model.
“Even if training is determined to be fair use, these companies will still be willing to pay for high-quality data,” he says.
Preston believes AI developers are eager to train their LLMs ethically. “I think they’re concerned that they’re alienating the creative community by what they’re doing. Created by Humans is offering them an opportunity to do the right thing.”
Recent findings in a court case against Meta suggest otherwise. The company admitted to training its AI models on pirated books, and e-mails show that although staffers were concerned about the legality and ethics of this practice, leadership sanctioned it.
Regardless, Preston submitted all of his forty-plus books to CbH. He also invested in the company. He agreed to training and reference uses but is wary of transformative rights. “Authors like me already have fan fiction—stories about our characters having sex with each other,” he says. “I find that kind of amusing and flattering, but those are humans creating that work.” For a machine to rewrite his books “seems a fundamental violation of the human spirit.”
No matter which rights they relinquish, Preston hopes all authors will sign up, if not to Created by Humans, then to another of the many AI licensing platforms hitting the market: Calliope Networks, Human Native AI, Personal Digital Spaces, and others.
“The only way this is going to work is if somebody brings all the authors of America together as a negotiating bloc to face the AI systems,” Preston says.
“There’s a lot of fear out there,” Rasenberger says. “‘If I let them use my work, they’re just going to mimic my work. Somebody’s going to take my authorship.’ The answer is, they’re already using your work. If your book is on a pirate website, it’s already been ingested. Take control of how it’s used.”
Jonathan Vatner is the author of The Bridesmaids Union (St. Martin’s Press, 2022) and Carnegie Hill (Thomas Dunne Books, 2019).
