Artificial intelligence machines capable of generating text-based works pose a serious threat to the writing profession and to our literary culture. Generative technologies built illegally on vast amounts of copyrighted works without licenses—that is, without giving authors any compensation or control over the use of their works—are used to cheaply and easily produce works that compete with and displace human-authored books, journalism, and other works. Without the guardrails that the Authors Guild is fighting for, the market dilution caused by AI-generated works will ultimately result in a shrinking of the profession as fewer human authors will be able to sustain a living practicing their craft and inevitably shut out important, diverse voices.
This is not just a problem for authors and their ability to make a living from their work—of particular concern to the Authors Guild—but a problem for all. Our literature and arts, the creativity which Americans excel at and we export around the world, will decline. Unless we can limit AI’s use of books and journalism to permissioned use that gives writers compensation and, most importantly, control over how AI models can be used, we will find ourselves in a world of homogenized mashups of what has come before, and we will lose future written works that incite the public discourse fundamental to democratic culture.
The Authors Guild believes that it is crucial to the future of democracy and culture to ensure that our literary arts remain vibrant and diverse.
Key Resources
AI Best Practices
Navigate issues related to AI and its implications for the writing profession.
AI Model Contract Clauses
Protect your work with model clauses covering important aspects of AI use.
Human Authored Certification
Distinguish human creativity in an increasingly AI world with our Human Authored certification.
Anthropic Settlement
Everything authors need to know about the $1.5 billion Anthropic settlement.
What the Authors Guild Is Doing
The Latest on the $1.5 Billion Anthropic Settlement
We break down next steps, payment amounts and allocations, default splits, the “works lists,” funding, and more.
To protect the future of writing, we are:
- Suing AI companies for copyright infringement over their theft of authors’ works to “train” generative AI;
- Lobbying for sensible policies and regulations governing the development and use of AI;
- Helping to build a market for legal, controlled licensing of works for AI use;
- Educating government officials, legislators, authors, and the public about the impacts of generative AI and equipping our members with the knowledge and tools they need to navigate this new landscape;
- And more.
We welcome your ideas of how we can protect the writing profession and literature (in the broadest sense) in the age of AI.
Advocacy Efforts
Click on the + icons below to find out more.
We brought strategic litigation to compensate authors for past illegal uses of their works by AI companies.
Copyright Lawsuit Against OpenAI and Microsoft
The Authors Guild and 17 fiction writers filed a class-action lawsuit against OpenAI for copyright infringement in September 2023. We then helped launch another case on behalf of nonfiction writers and joined cases. The plaintiffs added Microsoft as an additional defendant in December 2023.
Our case was later joined with other copyright suits against OpenAI and Microsoft, including one brought by The New York Times, before Judge Sidney H. Stein in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. This process is called multi-district litigation.
Discovery ended in mid-2026 and the parties filed opening motions for summary judgment in September 2026. Additional briefs are due later this fall, with a decision on summary judgment to follow likely in early 2027. The judge could decide the case himself on the basis of summary judgment or decide that there are factual issues which require sending some or all of the claims to a jury.
The case has not yet been briefed on class certification. The court agreed to hear the issue of whether the class could be certified after a decision on the merits, meaning that the case is proceeding for the time being as if the only plaintiffs are the named class plaintiffs and that any decision on class certification is still a ways off. We will share any updates as they occur. You can read more about class action lawsuits and class certification here.
Recent Updates
We were the first creator group to go to D.C. to talk about AI. Since then we’ve built relationships with dozens of Congressional offices, consulted on key pieces of AI legislation, and channeled authors’ concerns about AI to lawmakers and policymakers. We also organized a coalition of creator groups to mobilize together on common issues.
We believe that licensing is the path forward to converting unlicensed uses to licensed uses.
We have been at the forefront of providing reliable and timely information and useful educational resources to authors as they navigate the fast-changing AI landscape.
We vigorously participate in every available law, policy, and regulatory forum to ensure that authors’ voices are heard.
| Date | Action |
| September 2026 | Authors Guild Statement to Publishers on Anthropic Settlement: Relinquish Claims on Long Out of Print Books and Pay Out for Works You Failed to Register |
| August 2026 | Survey Results Detail Publishers’ Failure to Register Authors’ Copyrights |
| May 2026 | Authors Guild Applauds Copyright Lawsuit Against Meta for Stealing Books for AI Training |
| December 2025 | Authors Guild Raises Concerns About Kindle’s New “Ask This Book” AI Feature |
| August 2024 | Authors Guild and Leading Writers’ Organizations File Amicus Brief in Support of Authors in Class Action Against Anthropic |
| October 2024 | Sign the Statement on AI Training |
| July 2024 | Authors Guild Demands Prior Consent for AI Use of Academic and News Content The Authors Guild is deeply concerned by recent licensing deals made by academic, educational, magazine, and newspaper publishers with AI companies without consulting their authors. |
| April 2024 | Big Tech’s Disregard for Authors: AG Responds to Tech Companies Harvesting Books A New York Times investigation shows big tech’s flagrant disregard for the importance of books and the talent and hard work of authors. |
| February 2024 | Authors Guild Response To Findaway and Spotify’s Audiobook Terms of Use The Authors Guild brought member concerns about new, overbroad terms of use for Findaway Voices to Spotify, which updated the language the same day. |
| December 2023 | New Authors Guild AI Survey Reveals That Authors Overwhelmingly Want Consent and Compensation for Use of Their Works More than 2,400 authors responded to the Guild’s second AI survey, which delved deeper into some of the issues around generative AI. |
| September 2023 | Amazon’s New Disclosure Policy for AI-Generated Book Content Is a Welcome First Step After months of discussions with the Authors Guild, Amazon announced a new policy requiring those who post content to its KDP platform to disclose to Amazon if the work contains AI-generated content, including text, images, or translations. |
| July 2023 | More than 15,000 Authors Sign Authors Guild Letter Calling on AI Industry Leaders to Protect Writers The Authors Guild submitted an open letter to the CEOs of OpenAI, Alphabet, Meta, Stability AI, IBM, and Microsoft, calling attention to the inherent injustice of building lucrative generative AI technologies using copyrighted works and asking them to obtain consent from, credit, and fairly compensate authors. |
| May 2023 | Survey Reveals 90 Percent of Writers Believe Authors Should Be Compensated for the Use of Their Books in Training Generative AI The Authors Guild published the results of a survey to fully understand and frame important issues around the use and development of generative AI technology. More than 1,700 authors responded. |
Learn More
- AI Advocacy FAQ: Learn more about our positions and advocacy around generative AI.
- AI Licensing FAQ: AI licensing is a way to enforce copyright and bring control over uses back to the rightsholders.
- The AI Revolution in Book Publishing: This webinar examines how AI is disrupting the publishing industry itself.
- See Guidance for Authors above for more articles on specific topics or read all of our AI news updates here.