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Authors Alliance

@authorsalliance.bsky.social

Promoting authorship for the public good by supporting authors who write to be read. authorsalliance.org and authorsalliance.substack.com for updates.

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Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · yesterday

Authors Alliance joined a group of 18 civil society organizations to send a letter on Monday encouraging New York Governor Kathy Hochul to Senate Bill 9934A, the New York Stealth Crawler Prohibition Act.

EFF Joins 18 Civil Rights Organizations Calling on Governor Hochul to Reject the Stealth Crawler Prohibition Act

EFF joined a group of 18 civil society organizations to send a letter encouraging New York Governor Kathy Hochul to Senate Bill 9934A, the New York Stealth Crawler Prohibition Act. The letter states:W...

eff.org

SPARC@sparcopen.bsky.social · last wk.

Register for our Aug. 13 webinar with @authorsalliance.bsky.social! Get a better understanding of how the Federal Purpose License & campus IP policies support compliance with #OpenAccess & #PublicAccess policies. sparcopen-org.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Legal Pathways to Open Access: Federal Public Access Policy, Its Legal Foundations, and Institutional IP Policies. After registering, you will receive a con...

Federal public access policy rests on a legal architecture that most authors and institutions never see: the Federal Purpose License, the Uniform Guidance at 2 CFR Part 200, and the agency policies bu...

sparcopen-org.zoom.us

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · last wk.

The Office of Management and Budget’s new proposed rules for the administration of federal grants have caused a storm. This post steps back and addresses a more basic question: is any of this legal, and what happens when OMB is sued?

What Happens When OMB is Sued Over its New Proposed Grant Rules?

The Office of Management and Budget’s new proposed rules for the administration of federal grants have caused a storm.  Published on May 29 as the largest rewrite of federal grant rules since the U…

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 2w ago

Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín has closed the Bartz v. Anthropic case. When class members will actually be paid is probably the most pressing question for many authors and publishers covered by the settlement.

Bartz v. Anthropic Settlement Receives Final Approval

Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín has closed the Bartz v. Anthropic case, issuing a 23-page order that grants final approval of the class action settlement, resolves several outstanding administrative …

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 2w ago

In the years following the release of ChatGPT, plagiarism has become one of the most pressing issues in academic spaces. In May Berkeley Law enacted one of the strictest AI policies to date, functionally banning the use of AI in any part of completing course work aside from “identifying sources”.

Proving Humanity: The Failure of AI Detection Tools

OpenAI publicly launched ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. Five days later, Sam Altman, CEO and co-founder of OpenAI, tweeted the following: “I am a stochastic parrot, and so r u”.  The twe…

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 3w ago

Elsevier is suing Meta over use of copyrighted works for training Meta’s AI models. Along with two small updates in this case, we thought that now is a good moment to highlight and revisit some of the challenges of massive, class-action suits such as this to resolve copyright disputes.

Update: Elsevier is Suing Meta For Whom? (And will we ever really know?): Some thoughts on copyright class actions claiming to represent authors

As we wrote in May, Elsevier is suing Meta over use of copyrighted works for training Meta’s AI models. It has a set of claims very similar to those in Kadrey v. Meta, but with a different purporte…

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 3w ago

Last month OMB issued a notice seeking comment on a proposed new rule that would make highly consequential changes to the Uniform Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance. At last count, OMB had received nearly than 350,000 comments, and more than 50,000 were available to read. Today we filed ours:

Our Comments in the OMB Rulemaking

Last month, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a notice seeking comment on a proposed new rule.  The rule would make highly consequential changes to the Uniform Guidance for Federal F…

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 4w ago

If you use 10 seconds or less of a song, it’s fair use. You can copy 10% of a book for a class, and that’s fair use. Is this actually true? This is a guest post by Katherine Klosek of ARL and Stephen Wolfson of the University of Pennsylvania.

It’s Only Fair Use the First Time… Right? Debunking Copyright Urban Legends

This guest post, by Katherine Klosek of ARL and Stephen Wolfson of the University of Pennsylvania, is the latest in our series of posts marking the 50th anniversary of the Copyright Act of 1976. To…

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The term, “exclusive license” doesn't show up much in the law. Title 17 often refers to nonexclusive licenses, but generally avoids “exclusive license.” Under the copyright law, an exclusive license is a “transfer of ownership.” There is no difference between the two.

What Does “Exclusive” Mean in a Publishing Contract? | Authors Alliance

What does "exclusive" mean in a publishing contract? Learn how exclusive rights work, what authors give up, and the key questions to ask before signing an agreement.

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 2mo ago

OMB has proposed revisions that would make sweeping changes to how and for what purposes grants can be used. The “Uniform Guidance” has a big impact on how universities account for federal money, from what counts as an allowable cost to how indirect rates are negotiated.

Grant Accounting as Publishing Policy: How OMB's Proposed Uniform Guidance Changes Could Reshape Open Access and Scholarly Publishing

OMB's proposed revisions to the Uniform Guidance could restrict article processing charges, limit journal subscription costs, and reshape how federally funded research is published and accessed. A clo...

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Copyright lawyers, whether they are practitioners or academics, treat the Copyright Act of 1976 as if it were a sacred text. This guest post by @jonathanband.bsky.social is based on a presentation made on March 27, 2026, at the Texas A & M Law School Copyright Act @50 event.

The 1976 Act Could Have Been Very Different

Copyright lawyers, whether they are practitioners or academics, treat the Copyright Act of 1976 as if it were a sacred text. To a certain extent, we do so because we have internalized the great def…

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The fairness hearing in Bartz v. Anthropic took place this afternoon, Thursday, May 14, 2026. The hearing addressed approval of the $1.5 billion class action settlement, Class Counsel’s fee request, and the objections and replies filed by class members and others. Our observations are below:

Bartz v. Anthropic Fairness Hearing: Observations and Takeaways

The fairness hearing in Bartz v. Anthropic took place this afternoon, Thursday, May 14, 2026, before Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín in the Northern District of California. The hearing addressed appr…

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 3mo ago

The fairness hearing in Bartz v. Anthropic is set for today, Thursday, May 14, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time before Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín. The hearing will be open to the public via Zoom.

Bartz v. Anthropic Fairness Hearing: Final Reminder, 91.3% Claims Rate, and updates from the Docket

A copy of part of the settlement notice sent out to class members The fairness hearing in Bartz v. Anthropic is set for today, Thursday, May 14, 2026, at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time before Judge Araceli…

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 3mo ago

We are pleased to announce our collaboration with the eBook Study Group on a joint statement supporting Illinois HB5236, the Digital Library Protection Act, which passed the Illinois House without a single no vote and now heads to the Senate.

Authors Alliance Backs Illinois HB5236 and State eBook Licensing Reform

Authors Alliance supports Illinois HB5236, the Digital Library Protection Act, and broader state efforts to reform unfair eBook licensing practices affecting libraries, authors, and readers.

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Today in the Southern District of New York, Elsevier, Cengage, Hachette, Macmillan, and McGraw Hill — joined by novelist Scott Turow and his company S.C.R.I.B.E., Inc. — filed a class action against Meta and Mark Zuckerberg over the use of copyrighted works to train Meta’s Llama models.

Elsevier v. Meta: AI Training Lawsuit Explained

Elsevier and other publishers are suing Meta over AI training data. Here’s why the case matters for copyright, access to knowledge, and everyday users.

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 3mo ago

We've submitted a comment to the Copyright Office in response to its proposed fee schedule that urges the Office to stay true to its stated policy goals of incentivizing creativity by not hiking up the price of recording termination notice.

US Copyright Office Will Raise Termination Fee 126%?

Authors Alliance submitted a comment to the US Copyright Office in response to its proposed fee schedule (Docket No. 2026–2). We focus our comment on two things: (1) commending the Office for impos…

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 3mo ago

In 2024 we filed an amicus brief urging the Tenth Circuit to rehear Whyte Monkee v. Netflix. The previous decision was disastrous for documentary filmmakers and anyone else who uses works as historical reference points. The court has issued a new opinion that completely reversed course.

Tenth Circuit’s “Tiger King” Sequel: What It Means for Fair Use in Documentaries

The Tenth Circuit’s latest decision in the Tiger King case reinforces fair use protections for documentary filmmakers and historical storytelling.

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 3mo ago

We're pleased to share the final report of the Public Interest Corpus project. The report is the product of more than a year of work supported by the Mellon Foundation, in which we asked how research libraries can make books data available for AI training in ways that serve the public interest:

The Public Interest Corpus: Final Report and Path Forward

We are releasing today the final report of the Public Interest Corpus project. A stable, citable version is here: The Public Interest Corpus: A Framework for Implementation. Because we want to enco…

authorsalliance.org

Amanda Levendowski Tepski@tepski.tech · 3mo ago

FAQ on faculty ownership rights from the @authorsalliance.bsky.social (with an assist from the iPIP Clinic!) for other educators: www.authorsalliance.org/2021/06/22/f...

FAQ: Copyright Ownership & Online Course Materials

Authors Alliance is grateful to Harry Levin and Elise Widerlite, student attorneys at Georgetown Law practicing D.C. law pursuant to D.C. App. R. 48 under the supervision of Amanda Levendowski and …

authorsalliance.org

Chris Hanlon@chrishanlon.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Meet “ASU Atomic,” a subscription platform that claims to offer customized learning modules for fee-paying users. None of the ASU faculty whose course materials were harvested for the module I generated were aware that their image, lectures, lessons, or other teaching materials are being used.

SPARC@sparcopen.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Get up to speed about legal pathways to #OpenAccess in the latest paper by SPARC & Authors Alliance @authorsalliance.bsky.social. We address the legal uncertainties surrounding article versions & institutional copyright policies. www.authorsalliance.org/2026/04/02/n...

New White Paper: Institutional Copyright Policies and Article Versions in Open Access Publishing

Authors Alliance releases a new white paper analyzing institutional copyright policies and article versions, with implications for open access, repository deposit, and scholarly publishing.

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 3mo ago

When Sony introduced the Digital Audio Tape in 1987, it also introduced the possibility for consumers to spread thousands of copies through the market, obviating the need for purchasing commercial copies. With DAT, the perceived threat of consumer recording went from negligible to existential.

Section 1001-1010 of the Copyright Act, explained

A levy in exchange for an exemption was a novel idea, and it had some merit in theory. In practice, I think the main lesson of the AHRA is that a future levy scheme is probably ill-advised. But reg…

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 4mo ago

On April 8, Judge Martínez-Olguín issued an order to move the Bartz v. Anthropic settlement fairness hearing to May 14, 2026 at 2:00 p.m. Class members who have timely objected and wish to be heard may join the hearing via the Zoom log-in information found on page 2 of the order.

Bartz v. Anthropic Settlement Hearing Moved to May 14, 2026: Key Objections from Authors Explained

A federal judge rescheduled the Bartz v. Anthropic settlement fairness hearing to May 14, 2026. Review major author objections, including publisher favoritism, inadequate compensation, and transparenc...

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 4mo ago

This guest post by @anneterrygilliland.bsky.social discusses Section 106A. While most of copyright law treats author rights in terms of economic gains and harms, moral rights move author rights into the realm of the personal.

Moral Rights in U.S. Copyright Law: Understanding Section 106A and the Visual Artists Rights Act

Section 106A of U.S. copyright law grants limited moral rights of attribution and integrity to creators of certain visual artworks. This post explores the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA), its origins, and what it means for artists today.

authorsalliance.org

Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · 4mo ago

In March, investigative journalist Julia Angwin filed a class action lawsuit against Grammarly’s parent company over a feature of its service “that enabled Grammarly users to receive feedback on their writing from well-known journalists like Ms. Angwin, and even famous authors like Stephen King.”

What Julia Angwin’s Case Reveals About AI, Reputation, and the Right of Publicity

Investigative journalist Julia Angwin’s lawsuit against Grammarly raises key questions about AI-generated advice, misappropriation of identity, and the right of publicity. Here’s why existing laws may already be sufficient to address these harms.

authorsalliance.org