British authors ‘absolutely sick’ to discover books on ‘shadow library’ allegedly used by Meta to train AI | Ents & Arts News

British writers told Sky News that they felt “absolutely sick” to see their book titles appear in a ‘Shadow Library’ that is allegedly used by technical giant Meta to help develop artificial intelligence software.

“That’s my whole life,” said a best-selling novelist. “The thought someone in Silicon Valley or wherever the work is doing to produce identikit fake AI versions … it’s so disturbing.”

The tool to search the Leakgen database was published by The Atlantic Ocean Last week after the court documents were filed as part of a lawsuit by US comedian Sarah Silverman and other writers against Meta, who owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and has a current market value of more than £ 1RT, was made public earlier this year.

Meta is accused of violating copyright laws by using Libgen – a prominent so -called “Shadow Library”, anonymously, which allegedly contains millions of pirate copies of books, magazine articles and other materials – to develop the AI ​​software. Meta denied the claim and believed the case should be thrown out.

In a Legal document submitted earlier this weeksaid the technical company that it did not violate the Copyright Act by downloading books from some parts of Lygen to train its flagship AI System Llama 3, saying that it made “fair use” of the material, and that Llama 3 does not repeat “authors’ works.

In earlier court documents, advocates for Silverman and the other writers showed alleged internal communication Mark Zuckerberg ‘Approved’ use of the LiBgen data set despite concerns of some workers.

The Society of Authors (SOA) trade union described the alleged behavior of Meta as ‘terrible’ and says the company ‘must compensate the rights of all the works it utilized’.

“This is every book I’ve ever written,” says novelist Rowan Coleman, who has had about 40 books that have been published since her first in 2002, including the Sunday Times Top Seller The Memory Book in 2014, and the Bronte Mysteries series under a Pennam.

“I felt absolutely sick … I have no way of knowing how much income cost me. Like most writers, I struggle to pay the bills. I have three posts, I have children to support and a mortgage to pay. And there are technical billionaires that also benefit from my work and the work of many other writers.

Meta, says Coleman, allegedly decided to get “what they needed cheap and quickly”.

But financial compensation sets aside, she says there is a bigger problem. “It is a threat to this profession, even to continue to exist. We think, according to a sincere risk of having no books for people to actually have pirate – at least not one written by people. ‘

Coleman emphasizes the recent Netflix drama adolescence, written together by Stephen Graham, who was discussed from American talk to the British parliament everywhere. “We wouldn’t have it if it wasn’t for writers who sat down and worked for hours.

While JK Rowling, Stephen King and James Patterson may be worth millions, a survey in 2022 found that writers in the UK earned an average median income of approximately £ 7,000.

Hannah Doyle, a Romcom novelist who is about to publish her fifth novel, The Spa Break, in May, says two of her previous works appear in the lie search.

Like Coleman, she has other work to supplement her writers’ earnings. Each book takes about a year to complete, she says.

‘It’s David and Goliat’

“We’re kind of the little people, it’s like David and Goliath,” she says. “How can we stand up for our rights if we face these technical giants worth trillions of pounds?

“It’s not right because it’s theft in the end [allegedly] Steal our work and they use it to improve their AI systems. What will happen to our careers as a result? ‘

Doyle says the situation can be different if writers have been approached and compensation is offered.

“I think AI has so many benefits in certain areas,” she says. “For medical research, for example, it has the potential to be incredibly useful. What needs to happen is that we really have to give some boundaries before it takes over completely.”

Award -winning author Damian Barr, whose books also appear in the database, shared a post on Instagram and wrote: “Readers and viewers – because so many TV and film and theater start with a book – are subjected to the bar generated by machines … creatively and culturally and financially, AI robs us all.”

TV presenter and writer Richard Osman, who has had great success with his Thursday, has written on X: “Copyright Law is not complicated at all.

In his article, Atlantic writer Alex Traveler, who created the lie search tool, gave the warnings that it was “impossible” to know exactly which parts of Leaken Meta used and what parts it did not have, and the database is growing constantly.

His momentum was created in January 2025, he says, more than a year after the lawsuit said it was obtained by the technical giant, so some titles that are now appearing would not have been available at that time.

The SOA calls on writers in the UK to write to Meta, as well as their local MPs.

“Rather than asking for permission and paying for this copyrighted material, AI businesses consciously choose to steal them in the race to dominate the market,” CEO Anna Ganley said in a statement.

“This is a shocking behavior by great technology that is currently enabled by governments that do not intervene to strengthen and maintain current copyright protection.”

A spokesperson for the Meta said in a statement to Sky News that the company developed “Transformational Genai Open Source LLMS that uses incredible innovation, productivity and creativity for individuals and businesses.”

The statement continued: “Fair use of copyright material is very important.

The US lawsuit

Writers, including comedian Silverman, Richard Kadrey and Ta-Nehisi Coates, submitted their class action against Meta in California in 2023.

They accused the technical firm of illegally downloading digital copies of their books and using it – without their consent or compensation – to train AI.

The controversy surrounding lie is part of a greater debate over AI and copyright law. In the US, the Writers Guild says legal action against other AI businesses is underway because they allegedly used piration books as well as Meta.

The organization advised authors that if their books are used by Meta, they automatically include the Kadrey vs. Meta class action, the lawsuit involving Silverman and other writers, “without acting immediately”.

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Separately in 2023, the Authors Guild and 17 writers filed a class action against Openai in New York for alleged copyright infringement. The said plaintiffs include John Grisham, George RR Martin and Jodi Picoult.

The issue was also one of the driving forces behind the strikes in Hollywood in 2023. But not all in the creative industries are against it.

Last year, publisher Harper Collins reached an agreement with an unnamed technology company to allow “limited use of selected non-fiction back list titles” for training of AI models.

And in 2023 award -winning Crime writer Ajay Chowdhury told Sky News he was embracing the technology.

AI -Law in the UK – What happens?

A Consultation on AI Copyright Law in the UK End in February. Under the plans, a copyright release would be created for the training of AI, so that technical firms do not need a license to use copyright material – and creators will have to subscribe to prevent their work from being used.

A government spokesman at the time said that the current regime of the UK for Copyright and AI “withholds the creative industries, media and AI sector to realize their full potential – and it cannot continue”.

No changes will be made “until we are confident that we have a practical plan that gives each of us goals, including increased control for right holders to help them easily license their content, to enable legal access to material to train world-leading AI models in the UK and build greater transparency on materials used”, the spokesman said.

But many writers and others in the creative industries are not convinced.

“It just opens the door to so much exploitation of people’s rights, people’s data and their work,” says Coleman. “I will really urge the government to reflect on this again and to protect a gem in the crown of the British cultural identity – to do the right thing.”