# Outreach Letter: Society of Authors

**Date:** 22 November 2025
**To:** The Society of Authors
**From:** Palimpsest Stewardship Council
**Subject:** Protecting Authors' Rights in the Age of AI Training and Generative Content

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Dear Society of Authors,

We write to you with profound respect for the Society's 140-year history defending authors' interests, from establishing minimum royalty rates in the Victorian era to navigating digital publishing in the 21st century. The Society has consistently championed fair contracts, proper attribution, and the principle that authors deserve equitable compensation for their creative labour.

## The Palimpsest License: Author Rights for the AI Era

The **Palimpsest License** addresses an unprecedented challenge to authorial rights and income: the unconsented use of published books, articles, and literary works to train artificial intelligence systems that now generate text competing directly with human authors. This affects Society members across all genres—fiction, non-fiction, poetry, academic writing, children's literature, and journalism.

## The AI Extraction Crisis for Authors

### 1. Mass Training Without Permission
Large language models have been trained on:
- Millions of published books (via shadow libraries, publisher partnerships, web scraping)
- Literary journals and magazines
- Academic monographs and scholarly articles
- Poetry collections and anthologies
- Children's literature and young adult fiction
- Serialised fiction and online publishing

This extraction typically occurs:
- Without individual author knowledge or consent
- Without additional compensation beyond original publication/royalty agreements
- Without ongoing attribution when AI generates derivative works
- Without preserving authorial voice, cultural context, or creative intent

### 2. Publisher Rights Overreach
Many publishers now claim or seek to claim:
- Rights to license authors' works for AI training
- Retrospective AI training rights on backlist titles
- Broad "electronic rights" clauses that purportedly include AI training
- AI derivative rights without author consultation or benefit-sharing

Authors face:
- **Contract ambiguity** – Unclear whether existing agreements grant AI training rights
- **Power imbalance** – Publishers leveraging their position to claim expansive AI rights
- **Retrospective appropriation** – Backlist works licensed for AI without author consent
- **Revenue loss** – AI training value extracted without author compensation

### 3. Threats to Authorial Income
AI systems trained on authors' works enable:
- **Cheap content generation** – Publishers using AI to produce books rather than commissioning authors
- **Market flooding** – AI-generated books competing with human-authored works
- **Fee undercutting** – Commissioning editors offering lower advances, claiming AI reduces editing costs
- **Royalty erosion** – AI-generated "continuations" or "inspired by" works bypassing original authors

### 4. Cultural and Literary Devaluation
AI training particularly harms:
- **Literary fiction authors** – Distinctive voices homogenised into generic AI outputs
- **BAME and diaspora authors** – Cultural specificity appropriated without community recognition
- **Academic authors** – Scholarly expertise commodified without attribution or understanding
- **Poetry** – Linguistic innovation and emotional depth flattened into algorithmic patterns
- **Children's authors** – Pedagogical intent and age-appropriate craft stripped away

## How Palimpsest Protects Authors

### 1. Explicit AI Training Rights Reservation
Palimpsest enables authors to:
- **Reserve AI training rights** separately from publication rights
- **Require consent** before works are used in AI training
- **Negotiate compensation** specific to AI training use
- **Control derivatives** – AI-generated works based on their writing

### 2. Publisher Contract Clarity
Provides framework for:
- **Clear AI rights clauses** distinguishing publication from training rights
- **Reversion triggers** – Rights revert if publisher licenses for AI without author consent
- **Revenue sharing** – Mandating author participation in AI licensing income
- **Moral rights protection** – Preventing AI use that distorts authorial intent

### 3. Attribution in AI-Generated Content
Requires:
- **Synthetic lineage tags** – AI-generated text must disclose its training sources
- **Author credit preservation** – Bylines survive AI transformation
- **Style attribution** – When AI mimics an author's distinctive voice, credit is required

### 4. Cultural and Emotional Context
Particularly crucial for:
- **Memoir and personal narrative** – Protecting trauma stories and lived experience
- **Cultural works** – Preserving diaspora, indigenous, and regional cultural context
- **Academic scholarship** – Maintaining connection between ideas and originating scholars
- **Literary innovation** – Protecting experimental and genre-defining works

### 5. Collective and Individual Licensing
Supports:
- **Individual author control** – Each author decides their AI training terms
- **Collective bargaining** – Society of Authors negotiating industry-wide standards
- **Flexible implementation** – Authors can grant AI training rights with appropriate compensation

## Legal Framework

Palimpsest operates under:
- **Primary jurisdiction:** Netherlands (Dutch Civil Code, strong moral rights tradition)
- **Enforcement:** Scottish courts (relevant for UK authors, particularly Scottish society members)
- **Bilingual:** Dutch (legally binding) + English (primary language for Society members)
- **UK copyright compatibility** – Designed to complement UK CDPA 1988 protections

The **Palimpsest Stewardship Council** could include Society of Authors representation to ensure author-specific concerns inform license evolution.

## Proposed Collaboration with the Society

### 1. Model Publishing Contract Clauses
Developing Society-endorsed clauses for:
- **AI training rights** – Clearly reserving or licensing with compensation
- **Electronic rights clarification** – Distinguishing e-books from AI training
- **Reversion provisions** – Protecting authors from unconsented publisher AI licensing
- **Revenue sharing** – Ensuring authors participate in AI licensing income
- **Moral rights** – Preventing AI use inconsistent with authorial intent

### 2. Backlist Protection
Guidance for authors on:
- **Retrospective licensing** – Relicensing existing works with AI protections
- **Publisher negotiations** – Addressing AI rights in backlist agreements
- **Rights clarification** – Determining whether existing contracts grant AI training rights
- **Collective action** – Society-wide backlist protection initiatives

### 3. Policy Advocacy
Collaborating on:
- **UK copyright reform** – Ensuring AI training addressed in copyright law
- **Publishers Association engagement** – Industry standards for AI rights
- **Parliamentary inquiries** – Creative industries and AI policy
- **DCMS consultations** – Author protections in AI regulation

### 4. Educational Resources
Creating materials for Society members on:
- Understanding AI training and author rights
- Negotiating AI provisions in contracts
- Implementing Palimpsest or similar protections
- Collective vs. individual licensing strategies
- International rights considerations (particularly US and EU differences)

### 5. Quick Guides and Member Support
Developing:
- **Contract vetting checklists** – AI rights provisions to watch for
- **Negotiation templates** – Language for discussing AI rights with publishers
- **FAQs** – Common AI training scenarios and author responses
- **Member webinars** – Educational sessions on AI and authorial rights

## Case Studies Relevant to Society Members

### Literary Fiction
**Scenario:** A literary novelist's distinctive stylistic innovations are used to train an AI that generates "literary fiction" in their style, without credit or compensation.

**Palimpsest Protection:** Requires style attribution and consent, protecting distinctive authorial voices from appropriation.

### Academic Monograph
**Scenario:** A scholar's monograph is used to train an AI academic writing assistant, which then generates essays that cite the AI rather than the original scholarly sources.

**Palimpsest Protection:** Mandates disclosure of training sources and preservation of scholarly attribution chains.

### Children's Literature
**Scenario:** A children's author's carefully crafted age-appropriate narratives are used to train an AI that generates children's books without pedagogical understanding or developmental appropriateness.

**Palimpsest Protection:** Preserves authorial intent and thematic integrity, preventing commodification of children's literature craft.

### Memoir
**Scenario:** A memoirist's trauma narrative is extracted for AI training, which then generates "personal stories" that exploit trauma aesthetics without ethical frameworks.

**Palimpsest Protection:** Requires emotional lineage preservation and consent, protecting against trauma commodification.

## Invitation to Collaboration

We would be honoured to work with the Society of Authors to:

1. **Present at Society events** – Member meetings, webinars, regional groups
2. **Develop member resources** – Tailored to UK publishing context
3. **Collaborate on policy advocacy** – Joint campaigns for author AI protections
4. **Support contract negotiations** – Providing legal frameworks for individual and collective bargaining
5. **International coordination** – Connecting with Authors Guild (US), EWC, and global author organisations

Would you be available for an initial conversation? We are flexible regarding format—video conference, presentation at Society offices, written exchange, or participation in relevant committees.

## Contact Information

**Palimpsest Stewardship Council**
Email: [contact information to be provided]
Repository: https://github.com/[repository-path]
Documentation: [documentation URL]

Thank you for your consideration. The Society of Authors has defended authorial rights through profound technological changes—from typewriter to computer, from print to digital. We aspire to support Society members navigating the AI era, ensuring authors retain control, credit, and fair compensation for their creative work.

With deep respect for authors' rights,

**The Palimpsest Stewardship Council**

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## Appendices Available Upon Request

- Full text of Palimpsest License v0.4 (English and Dutch)
- Model publishing contract clauses for AI rights
- Backlist protection strategies and templates
- Case studies across literary genres
- UK copyright and AI training: legal analysis
- International comparison: US, EU, and Commonwealth approaches
