Imagine a library stocked with 11,000 books written by more than 1700 Australian authors.

Modern classics from Tim Winton and Helen Garner are wedged beside non-fiction tomes penned by former prime ministers Julia Gillard and John Howard, and recent publications authored by Kathy George, Melanie Cheng and Chris Hammer.

Now imagine all of them have been stolen in digital form, added to a database of pirated works and used to train artificial intelligence software.

It’s a scenario Sydney writer and technologist Jordan Guiao didn’t foresee for his book Disconnect and he was shocked to find it among the listings.

“My first thought was this is theft, plain and simple,” he says.

“My book is about the responsible and ethical use of technology so it’s kind of ironic it got caught up.”

The book-stealing claims, levelled at Facebook parent company Meta and exposed in US court documents, have shaken Australia’s publishing industry and inspired calls for legal action and compensation.

But a leading author advocacy group says launching lawsuits against multinational tech giants is too much of a gamble.

The Australian Society of Authors is instead calling for major political parties to make legal changes that will deliver transparency and compensation for creative workers affected by AI.

Technology experts say there’s no reason AI regulation should not be an election issue, although they warn international co-operation will be vital to any policy’s success.

The claims against Meta emerged from a copyright infringement lawsuit in the US, which alleges the tech giant used the Library Genesis (LibGen) database of more than seven million pirated books to train its AI model, Llama 3.

Documents obtained in the lawsuit include internal communications that show use of the copyright material was escalated “to Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta executives for approval”.

But the authors involved were not aware their books were being used in this way or that the titles had appeared in a database.

“I certainly didn’t provide my consent for my book to be used in that way,” Mr Guiao says.

“I would have considered sharing it if I was asked and if I knew that it would be useful for some sort of scientific research but we know Meta isn’t doing it for the benefit of society, they’re doing it to create another layer (of technology) that they can monetise.”

A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Mr Guiao is far from alone in his experience, with more than 1700 Australians registering stolen books in a survey from the Australian Society of Authors.

The stolen content represents more than 11,000 publications, chief executive Lucy Hayward says, and a reason why the group is calling for urgent change.

While launching a copyright lawsuit may seem like the obvious course of action, she says it would be risky as the “infringing act” likely occurred overseas and the group would prefer to see legal protections extended to authors.

“We don’t think it’s a good idea to gamble the future of Australian authors, of Australian books, on the outcome of lawsuits overseas,” she tells AAP.

“We think it’s better for the government to take action now to protect livelihoods so Australians can have access to Australian stories in the future.”

The federal government held an inquiry into adopting artificial intelligence and two public consultations, with the most recent asking whether respondents would prefer changes to existing laws or a dedicated law to govern AI technology.

Authors would prefer the latter, Ms Hayward says, to ensure greater transparency and copyright enforcement.

“What we need is a new law that requires big tech to pay ongoing compensation where Australians’ work is used to train models offshore,” she says.

“This is obviously a difficult time in the election cycle – the government is in caretaker mode – but following the election it will be time for the government to regulate.”

AI rules have not been raised as an election issue this campaign, although Industry Minister Ed Husic recently acknowledged they would need to be “considered and prioritised in the next” term.

But there is no reason why AI regulations shouldn’t be discussed or promised during the campaign, University of the Sunshine Coast computer science senior lecturer Erica Mealy says, particularly as they affect workers’ rights and earning potential.

“This is a cost-of-living issue because there’s a whole segment of our society who are already underpaid and undervalued who are being ripped off,” she says.

“It’s important to protect their livelihoods and I haven’t seen that kind of rhetoric so far.”

Australian regulators had been quick to recognise the potential impact of AI, to investigate it and to introduce voluntary rules around its use, Dr Mealy says.

But stronger, mandatory regulations would be needed to prevent copyright material being exploited and Australia may need to seek consensus from other nations to ensure their success.

“Protecting copyright needs to be more than voluntary and it needs to be put on the international agenda,” she says.

“There are AI regulations coming out of the (European Union) and some of their controls seem to be better.”

 

Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson
(Australian Associated Press)