Anthropic to Pay Authors $1.5 Billion to Settle Lawsuit

Back in June, a judge ruled that Anthropic could use books to train its AI without the permission of the authors who wrote said works. But the case wasn't quite settled. There was still the matter of how Anthropic got the books that it used. Apparently, they were pirated copies downloaded for free.

It seems that the "fair use" principle on which Anthropic's lawyers were hanging their hats on wasn't going to hold up. Since the books were essentially stolen from the authors, there was nothing fair about how they were acquired. To avoid a ruling against them later this year (and possibly being forced to pay even more), Anthropic settled last week for $1.5 billion.

While I think that it's great that the authors and the Authors Guild won, I think that $1.5 billion is a paltry sum when taken as a whole for the entire industry past, present, and future. That last part is what bothers me. As corporations choose AI over people (and I'm not just talking about creatives but software programmers, data analysts, and other technical professions), more and more of us will find ourselves displaced. We'll have to hope that consumers prefer works written by humans over computers.

There are still a couple of cases out there that might be influenced by this one. Newspapers are suing OpenAI and Warner Bros. is going after Midjourney for snagging Tweety, Superman, and many other copyrighted characters. Maybe corporate lawyers will be a bit more successful than those of the Authors Guild.

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How to Thrive as a Writer in a Capitalist Dystopia by Russell Nohelty

Full disclosure: I backed the Kickstarter for this book, and even though I have a fair amount of negative things to say, I don't regret it. I found it to be an educational read.

thrive: verb (used without object)

1. to prosper; be fortunate or successful. Synonyms: advance
2. to grow or develop vigorously; flourish.
   The children thrived in the country.

Russell Nohelty is a successful writer, and he wants to share what he's learned about marketing with you. But after reading this book, I've come to the conclusion that "thriving" is not what this book is about. It's about how to survive as a writer in a capitalist dystopia.

survive: to get along or remain healthy, happy, and unaffected in spite of some occurrence.

She's surviving after the divorce.

After reading through all of the health issues (both mental and physical) that Nohelty shares with the reader, his suggestion not to strive for happiness in order to avoid falling into negativity, and the constant drumbeat of how exhausted he is from promoting his brand (blog posts, interviews, podcasts, strategizing his advertizing budget, evaluating what promotions are working, etc.) leads me to believe that he's deluding himself into thinking he's thriving; he's merely surviving.

But "survive" isn't as marketable a word as "thrive." And it's clear to me after reading this book, that Nohelty knows marketing.

And that's where this book has value. Right from the start, Nohelty gives his readers a reality bath. If you have any illusions about your chances of success after publishing your book, then he will wash those illusions away. Once he's done that, he works hard for you to accept things as they are. It's not your fault. Capitalism is a rough system with many evils; it's difficult to conduct commerce in such a system, but it's what we have to deal with. Nohelty doesn't want authors to let the system damage their mental health.

Once that's out of the way, he shares his business experience, matters of personal health, his experiences with social media, makes suggestions about automating your workflow, explains arbitrage, agonizes over the size of his mailing list, crunches the numbers on advertizing ROI, drowns you in marketing philosophy, and tries to get you to focus on what works for you. There's even a clever bit about author archetypes which he and his partner have dubbed "biomes." There's plenty more, but it can be repetitive at times and rambling, and I found myself wanting him to get on with it. But he has to get it all out there because he's trying to make a point and, IMO, he's burning the candle at both ends.

There's a workbook—emphasis on work—that goes with this book that could prove useful. But if you need a guide you can sign up for the service that he and a fellow successful marketer have devised. Nohelty goes into some detail about that in the book, and it stuck in my craw. I don't fault him for monetizing his experience, but I do feel like he's trying to upsell anyone who bought this book. And I don't really appreciate that, but hey, we live in a capitalist dystopia, so it's all fair game.

So if you're an indie writer, should you pick this up? If you've got a routine that you're happy with, then no. If you're content with your writing as a fun hobby, then also no. But if you've got at least three books under your belt, you've sold less than 100 copies (like 99% of us), and you're looking to find out what may or may not be required of you to grow your brand, then yes. It's a sobering look at one man's efforts (one who already had experience with sales and marketing) to grow his brand. Maybe you'll find something in it that works for you.

And Mr. Nohelty, if you're reading this, H.P. Lovecraft never lived in Los Angeles, much less had a salon there.

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Judge Rules AI Can Use Books Without Permission

Yesterday, a judge ruled that Anthropic can use copywrighted material without the author's consent when training its AI. This is a terrible setback for not only the rights of authors and artists, but publishers as well.

One possible silver lining, albeit a weak one, that may come out of this is that literary and artistic content may have to be purchased in order for the "fair use" prinicple to apply. Anthropic may have to purchase a copy of an author's book in order to use it for AI training. The plaintiff in the case insisted that Anthropic used pirated material to create its "central library." In my opinion, getting a few bucks is a paltry sum to be paid by a company that's worth over $60 billion (for the moment, anyway).

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Problems With Draft2Digital

I had every intention to get my latest novel, Gateway To Empire, published in other ebook formats besides the Kindle, but those plans have gone awry. Previously, I used Smashwords to publish all of these myriad other ebook formats, but they were purchased by Draft2Digital (D2D). I discovered that they use a different formatting program than Smashwords.

I attempted to get this done in February, but I struggled to get the D2D software to properly format my manuscript. After weeks of frustration, I decided to take a break. Days turned to weeks turned to months. My attempts this month to try again have met with failure.

In the help section FAQ, here's what I found:

If I format my file myself, will it look exactly the same when you convert it?
No. Ebooks are a reflowable format that allows the reader a lot of flexibility in how they consume content. Draft2Digital's automated conversion process will strip out things that force formatting to be one exact way—embedded fonts, extra line breaks, empty pages, footnotes, or anything the system considers unnecessary to the final file.

I'm not trying to do anything fancy. I just want to get paragraphs to align, a particular quote to be indented, and the information pages (ISBN page, Other books by..., etc.) to line up. So I'm at a loss. I guess I'll keep pounding my head against the D2D wall.

The thing is: I really wanted to get all of the ebook formats set up so that when I contact indie book reviewers I can offer them copies in any format they might want. But now, I can't.

If anyone has any suggestions for alternatives to D2D, please let me know in the comments.

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The Big Five Publishers Have Killed Literary Fiction

Need another reason to support indie writers? Consider reading this post by Elizabeth Kaye Cook and Melanie Jennings, wherein they discuss how consolidation in the publishing industry has basically reduced your reading options to what algorithms recommend.

But who needs authors, right? Just let AI do it. 🙄

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