Report: “Academic Authors “Shocked” After Taylor & Francis Sells Access to Their Research to Microsoft AI”

UPDATED POST (July 23, 2024) An Academic Publisher Has Struck an AI Data Deal with Microsoft—Without Their Authors’ Knowledge (The Conversation)

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From The Bookseller:

Authors have expressed their shock after the news that academic publisher Taylor & Francis, which owns Routledge, had sold access to its authors’ research as part of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) partnership with Microsoft—a deal worth almost £8m ($10m) in its first year.

The agreement with Microsoft was included in a trading update by the publisher’s parent company in May this year. However, academics published by the group claim they have not been told about the AI deal, were not given the opportunity to opt out and are receiving no extra payment for the use of their research by the tech company.

The Society of Authors said it is “concerned to see publishers signing deals with tech companies without consulting authors and creators first”.

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A spokesman from the Taylor & Francis group, which is owned by Informa—a FTSE 100 international B2B Events, B2B Digital Services and Academic Markets group—confirmed to The Bookseller that “it is providing Microsoft non-exclusive access to advanced learning content and data to help improve relevance and performance of AI systems”.

The agreement, details of which were published by Informa during a trading update in May, states that Informa will be paid $10m+ for “an initial data access” of the works it has the rights to, with a recurring payment of an undisclosed sum to be made over the subsequent three years.

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The Bookseller asked Taylor & Francis if it was possible to opt out and requested clarification over whether authors had been told about the AI deal. The publisher’s spokesman said he couldn’t comment further. The Bookseller has also contacted Microsoft for comment.

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