A group of renowned authors, including Richard Osman, Kazuo Ishiguro, Kate Mosse, and Val McDermid, have come forward with an open letter urging the UK government to hold Meta accountable for its alleged copyright infringement practices. At the heart of the issue is Meta’s use of copyrighted books to train its generative artificial intelligence technologies without proper authorization or compensation. By leveraging these works without permission, authors claim Meta is engaging in a ‘clear infringement’ of UK copyright law, and they are calling for immediate government intervention.
The letter, addressed to Lisa Nandy, the UK’s Secretary of State for Culture, Media, and Sport, demands that Meta senior executives be summoned to Parliament to provide clarity on their data scraping practices. It explicitly criticizes Meta for exploiting authors’ copyrighted material without securing licenses or providing compensation. As Val McDermid passionately stated, ‘I’m a crime writer – I understand theft when I see it. By using pirated material, Meta is stealing from us twice over.’
The legal basis of these allegations lies in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which enshrines the rights of authors to control how their works are reproduced, adapted, or distributed. UK copyright law emphasizes that any use of protected material—whether through adaptation, translation, or reproduction—requires explicit permission from the copyright holder and often necessitates a negotiated license fee. In this case, authors argue that Meta’s scraping of content for AI model training flouts these legal provisions, amounting to large-scale theft.
Beyond the legal implications, the ethical issues raised by this practice are significant. The authors contend that scraping their works without permission not only disregards their rights but undermines their ability to earn a living from their creativity. Kate Mosse likened the situation to a David-and-Goliath struggle, stating, ‘This is theft on a large scale, and it must stop. Fair is fair.’ The oppressive financial and legal burden required to challenge tech giants like Meta leaves authors ‘almost powerless.’ Such asymmetry in power dynamics raises important questions about the fairness and enforceability of existing laws when pitched against the resources and influence of multinational technology companies.
The industry-wide implications of this controversy are profound. If Meta and similar firms continue to use copyrighted material to train AI systems without penalty, it could erode the value of intellectual property, setting a dangerous precedent. Intellectual property rights are the economic backbone for authors, musicians, and artists. Widespread unauthorized scraping could drive creators away from their professions or lead to extensive litigation. This call-to-action from the authors signals the growing tension between the creative industries and technology companies over AI’s rapid development and its reliance on copyrighted materials.
Concrete examples of such tension can already be found globally. In the United States, the Authors Guild, another prominent organization, is initiating lawsuits against OpenAI and others for similar copyright-related complaints. Closer to home, the UK’s music and entertainment sectors have also raised alarms about AI-generated content threatening the economic viability of creative works.
In conclusion, the open letter underscores the critical need for stronger government oversight on AI development and the enforcement of copyright laws in the era of artificial intelligence. It also amplifies the voices of creators who feel marginalized in a rapidly changing technological landscape. As AI technologies grow in sophistication, this case highlights the larger ethical and legal battle surrounding intellectual property rights—a battle that will likely shape the relationship between technology and creativity for decades to come.