Penguin Random House is adding an AI warning to its books’ copyright pages

In Brief

Penguin Random House, the world’s largest trade publisher, will be adding language to the copyright pages of its books to prohibit the use of those books to train AI.

The Bookseller reports that new books and reprints of older titles from the publisher will now include the statement, “No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.”

While the use of copyrighted material to train AI models is currently being fought over in multiple lawsuits, Penguin Random House appears to be the first major publisher to update its copyright pages to reflect these new concerns.

On its own, this update doesn’t necessarily change the legal status of a text (i.e, it’s not implying that using a book for AI training was totally fine until now). Nor does it necessarily mean Penguin Random House is completely opposed to the use of AI in book publishing.

In August, the publisher outlined an initial approach to generative AI, saying it will “vigorously defend the intellectual property that belongs to our authors and artists” while also promising to “use generative AI tools selectively and responsibly, where we see a clear case that they can advance our goals.”