Penguin Random House Warns of AI on Book Copyright Pages

Penguin Random House, a trade publisher, is adding text to the copyright pages of its books that will stop them from being used to train AI

According to The Bookseller, the publisher will now put a note in new books and reprints of older books that says, “No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any way to train artificial intelligence technologies or systems.”

Several lawsuits are going on right now over using copyrighted material to train AI models. Penguin Random House seems to be the first big publisher to change its copyright pages to reflect these new concerns.

The update doesn’t mean that Penguin Random House doesn’t like using AI to produce books. In August, it first talked about its approach to generative AI, saying it would “vigorously defend the intellectual property that belongs to our authors and artists.” It also said it would “use generative AI tools selectively and responsibly, where we see a clear case that they can advance our goals.”