Dear members,
As many of you already know, the U.S. publication The Atlantic recently published a search tool for authors to find out if their work is held in Library Genesis (LibGen), a Russian pirated book and journal site that is reportedly being used by Meta and other Artificial Intelligence developers to train their products. Many of you have searched for and found your books in LibGen (National Council members included).
Please know The Writers’ Union of Canada has been lobbying for strong regulation and legislation around book piracy, illegal book scanning and lending, and AI training and use for a long time now.
The Union’s AI advocacy is summarized on this page of our website:
Artificial Intelligence | The Writers' Union of Canada
TWUC’s National Council is discussing the LibGen database revelations and a Union response. Please understand the LibGen database is only the latest list of books revealed to have been accessed without permission by AI developers. A similar list was revealed, also by The Atlantic, last year. The heart of this problem, beside the plain illegality of the training uses of our work, is that governments and courts have been left behind by this fast-moving industry, and no strong, effective regulation has yet been introduced anywhere in the world.
The Union has thoroughly investigated the possibility of a Canadian class-action lawsuit and found that it's not feasible at this time. There are Canadian test cases active in the newspaper sector, and we are following them closely to see their effect on our legal landscape. There is also one request in Quebec for an author class action, and one in British Columbia, but they have yet to be certified by the courts.
We are actively supporting the author class action lawsuits in the United States where most of the book-training is taking place, and we are leading a global response through the International Authors Forum. While most foreign lawsuits will provide no material reward to Canadian authors, the legal reining-in of illicit practices would benefit us all.
The U.S. Authors Guild, our colleague organization in New York, has published a list of immediate actions you can take should you find your work in LibGen. We repeat them here with Canadian details where applicable:
1. Send a formal notice: If your books are in the LibGen dataset, send a letter to Meta and other AI companies stating they do not have the right to use your books. Here is the AG’s template you can use.
2. Protect your works: Add a “NO AI TRAINING” notice on the copyright page of your works. For online work, you can update your website’s robots.txt file to block AI bots. The Authors Guild offers practical resources to help shield your content from AI scrapers.
3. Insist on an AI clause in your contracts: The Union has created a new clause for author contracts that reserves AI training rights for the author. This will help to clarify in a legally binding document that you are the owner of your work for this specific purpose. The AI clause is in the latest edition of the Union’s Model Trade Book Contract, and on our AI advocacy page.
4. Stay informed: Follow this issue and the Union’s related advocacy closely. We will be in touch for letter-writing campaigns and help in contacting Canadian lawmakers.
Finally, opinions about the value of generative AI systems fall on a spectrum. Many artists want nothing to do with them, while others welcome them as a new tool, with a range of comfort-levels represented between those positions. The Union is concerned about the professional and legal lines that must be drawn for all new technologies affecting the work of writers, and the potential cultural trespass and damage these tools can and have already caused. We strive to keep you informed about all these issues, to allow you to determine the best path forward for you and your work.
The Writers’ Union of Canada | 
