Wiley expects to make US$44 million from AI partnership, authors unable to opt out

In the US, academic publisher Wiley has revealed it expects to make US$44 million (A$66m) from artificial intelligence (AI) partnerships that allow large language models (LLMs) to be trained on content from its authors, but is not giving authors the opportunity to opt out of the partnerships, reports the Bookseller.

Wiley, which confirmed last month that it had entered AI partnerships, has already earned US$23 million (A$34m) from the deals. The company confirmed to the Bookseller that it expects to make a further US$21 million (A$31m) this financial year.

Justifying the company’s decision not to allow authors to opt out of having their work used in LLM training, a spokesperson told the Bookseller that ‘creating an opt-out or opt-in for a specific type of licensing on a case-by-case basis would erroneously support AI developers’ specious claim that licensing is not scalable’.

Wiley said it compensates authors ‘in accordance with the contractual terms’, but added, ‘our contractual arrangements are confidential, so we do not disclose specific information about their financial terms’. The publisher, when asked about the companies it was partnering with for the AI deals, said it considered information about specific licensing agreements to be confidential.

The revelation of Wiley’s earnings from AI partnerships follows concern from authors over an AI partnership between academic publisher Taylor & Francis and Microsoft. Taylor & Francis has confirmed it expects to make US$75 million (A$112m) from two AI partnership deals.

Category: International news