CALLING ALL AUTHORS AND ENJOYERS OF STORIES.

CALLING ALL AUTHORS AND ENJOYERS OF STORIES.

AN AUSTRALIAN PUBLISHING HOUSE IS TRYING TO FORCE THEIR AUTHORS TO SIGN AMENDED CONTRACTS THAT ALLOWS THE PUBLISHER TO FEED THEIR WORKS INTO A GENERATIVE AI AND UTILISE ANY RESULTANT OUTPUT WITHOUT LIMITATION.

On 5th March 2025, news broke that they want the right to "reproduce, use, adapt and exploit the work in connection with the development of any software program, including, without limitation, training, testing, validation, and the deployment ifba machine learning or generative artificial intelligence system."

This is fucking outrageous. This means that the authors original ideas will be used to generate "new" stories, which the publishing house will own all the rights to, and which the author will have no rights to and will see no financial return for. This is genuinely the most outrageous proposal I've ever seen from a publishing house.

The company is Black Inc Publishing.

Their email address is enquiries@blackincbooks.com

How about we let them know exactly how opposed to this idea the wider public is.

If you're Australian and you email them: fantastic.

If you're not Australian and you email them? EVEN BETTER. Make sure you let them know what country you're emailing from. Let them know how far news of their atrocious idea has spread.

Publishing Houses should be standing AGAINST the rot that is AI, and instead, Black Inc wants to exploit their authors in exchange for a cheap buck. Let's NOT let this happen without a riot.