The Latest on Writing and Publishing in Canada
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | LEGAL | PRIZES | INTERNATIONAL
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Author Educator Receives Pushback on “Ethical” AI
Renowned American publishing expert and author educator, Jane Friedman, opened a recent webinar on Using AI for Writing Business Efficiency with the admission that she received “quite a number of messages, both privately and publicly, really disagreeing with me” for offering the webinar at all.
Friedman, the author of The Business of Being a Writer, and a highly trusted voice in the U.S. publishing world, pitched the webinar as lessons in the productive, ethical use of artificial intelligence in writing-business practices, and the use of the word “ethical” seems to have been a prompt for criticism.
Many in the writing and publishing sector do not consider any use of artificial intelligence to be ethical, given the technology’s well-documented unpermitted, unlicensed uses of copyright-protected material in its development, its early negative influence on education, its environmental impact, and what is seen as cultural misrepresentation and bias in dealing with Indigenous knowledge and cultural information.
Friedman spent some time in the webinar addressing many of these concerns, while maintaining that Chatbots can be valuable tools for writers if they choose to use them in responsible ways. She also noted that while she has seen “blowback” from her use of AI, she has also received enthusiastic gratitude for sharing her knowledge on it. Friedman herself has been the victim of AI-generated instant books being sold online using her name as the author, and has written angrily about that experience.
LEGAL
Two U.S. Legal Decisions Muddy Waters for Authors on AI
Authors could be excused for being disappointed in two recent U.S. lower court judgements that seem on first glance to be giving broad retroactive permission to technology firms for the unpermitted use of books in the training of AI’s large language models. The twin bogey-defences of “fair use” and “transformative use” seem to have won yet again, but with enough caveats to suggest the fight is not over yet.
Northern California District Court Judge William Alsup handed tech firm Anthropic a win in Bartz v. Anthropic when he ruled that one of the ways Anthropic used books — by buying them and then “destructively scanning” them — was indeed a fair use. On the other hand, earlier scraping of pirate libraries was found to be a copyright infringement. That pirate site usage could indeed make for a large damages ruling down the road. Furthermore, copyright experts in the U.S. are finding enough wrong with the overall judgement to suggest an appeal of the fair use finding would likely be successful.
In a second case, Kadrey et al v. Meta, District Judge Vince Chhabria also found for the tech firm — this time Facebook’s parent company Meta — judging their own use of books for AI training to be a fair use. It would seem, though, that the decision in that case was more against the claims made by the plaintiffs than for the defence put forward by Meta. An analysis of the ruling on the U.S. website Mashable notes that it “leaves the door open for other artists to file similar copyright suits against Meta — and other AI companies. Chhabria even postulated that ‘it will be illegal to copy copyright-protected works to train generative AI models without permission.’”
So, these two early rulings have highlighted where tech firms can succeed in their claims of fair use, and where authors might fail on claims of infringement, but close readings indicate the arguments about AI use of published books have only just begun, and that higher courts will almost certainly have to weigh in.
PRIZES
Giller Prize Lobbies Federal Government for Financial Support
The Giller Foundation, which administers the annual $100,000 Giller Prize, has drawn up a budget recommendation for the federal government that requests $5 million in public support over the coming three years. The recommendation is being circulated in the writing and publishing community ahead of submission as the foundation seeks support for its ask.
The Canadian arts sector has entered a crisis stage in which audiences have not fully returned after pandemic contraction, corporate sponsors have pulled back, and public funding has either flatlined or is actively shrinking. A number of literary festivals across the country are appealing for community support and/or contemplating shutting down completely. That a prize long considered the elite level of Canadian literary presentation is also struggling indicates just how rough the current climate is for arts organizations.
The Giller Prize recently cut ties with longtime sponsor Scotiabank, under pressure from protests over the bank’s investment in weapons systems. It has been unable to replace the central role of Scotiabank as core sponsor, and is looking to the government for bridge financing while it continues its search, and delivers its program.
Elana Rabinovitch, the Giller Prize executive director and daughter of the prize’s founder, Jack Rabinovitch, has indicated the foundation is looking at all options for maintaining the prize, including scaling back on the glitz and swankiness of the prize gala itself, and reducing the size of the monetary award. The Giller Prize has operated for over 30 years and has, without question, raised the profile of Canadian books and driven sales for both shortlisted and winning titles. It would be difficult to calculate the impact of losing the Giller.
INTERNATIONAL
German Publishers Identify Conflicting Trends Driving Slow Market Growth
A recent report in the international online journal, Publishing Perspectives, indicates the German publishing sector enjoyed 1.8 percent growth in 2024. Citing both audiobook sales and youth enthusiasm for books as drivers of growth, Germany worries however about the promotion of literacy skills and reading in German society.
According to the report, “One in four children is left out because they lack sufficient reading skills. And the effects of this educational crisis continue… one in five adults living in Germany reads at the level of a 10-year-old child.”
The latest full-year figure has the German book market at 9.88 billion Euros, or close to 15 billion Canadian dollars. That is approximately 7 times the Canadian market. Early figures for 2025 show a German market stalled by ongoing global affordability pressures, but with the traditionally strong second half of the bookselling year still to come.
