24/03/2025
Have your books been scraped in the LibGEN dataset by Meta?
Illegal Intellectual Property Use is Theft
Notice from NZSA March 24, 2025
Over the weekend, The Atlantic published a search tool that allows authors to check if their works have been used in LibGen, an illegal pirate site AI companies copied for their AI systems.
This is a similar tool to the one that journalist Alex Reisner made available for the Books3 AI training dataset last year, but this new list has more than 7.5 million books copied by Meta and other AI companies for their AI systems. It is not clear whether Meta downloaded and used every book in LibGen.
Pirate Sites Are Illegal Sources of Books for AI Training
Author societies around the world are collaborating with each other, publishers and governments to combat major piracy websites that cost authors millions in lost sales and licence fees.
In the US, collective action took down Z-Library and more than 250 mirror sites, successfully sued Kiss Library, and assisted publishers in actions against LibGen, resulting in blocked domains In the US and multi-million-dollar fines. New Zealand currently does not have legislation that allows site blocking. These sites remain challenging to permanently eliminate as they operate from Russia or Ukraine, and quickly migrate to new domains when blocked.
Around the globe Copyright Law is being reviewed and updated to tackle AI IP infringement. In NZ, MBIE is the Ministry responsible for the Copyright Act review so do make your views known.
Later this year MBIE will call for formal consultation with creative industries and the public on new legislation including AI, though the process has been delayed by a change of Minister which cancelled scheduled consultation sessions.
Meta and other AI companies know exactly what they are doing
AI companies need books for their quality writing, style, expression, long-form narration and content. They would rather steal that content than ask and pay for the use of it, as they do all other necessary components, costs and compliance required to run their businesses, such as electricity, wages, government health and safety requirements, and programming.
Actions You Can Take Now
There are actions you can take to defend your rights now:
A. PLEASE SEND NZSA DETAILS on this Google Form of your books and list your books which have been illegally ingested if you are a NZ author. We will submit this database to international class action suits. The Atlantic has a search tool HERE to check if your titles have been included.
It does not matter if you are not an NZSA member - we are building a database of all NZ books that have been illegally used.
B. 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 a template you can use that links to this joint action
C. 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.
Ask for a clause in your publishing contracts that your publisher will not knowingly allow AI scraping of your books.
D. Certify Human Authorship:
In reprints and new publications verify on the title page that your book was created by a human, not generated by AI.
E. Join the Society of Authors:
If not a member, please consider joining the NZSA to support our joint advocacy with our sister organisations around the world to ensure that the writing profession remains alive and vibrant in the age of AI. We give authors a voice, and there is power in numbers.
Join us
CLNZ/NZSA/PANZ position statement on AI HERE
Article for reference:
How the Emerging Market for AI Training Data is Eroding Big Tech’s ‘Fair Use’ US Law Copyright Defense
Stay informed. Watch our newsletters for updates. The legal landscape is changing rapidly, and we are keeping close watch. Together, we can build collective power in responding to these blatant violations.
Ka kite anō
NZSA National Office
