HarperCollins Confirms It Has a Deal to Sell Authors' Work to AI Company.

The english speaking world has, for years now, boasted a group of publishing houses called ‘The Big 5’. Consisting of HarperCollins, Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster, the group is responsible for publishing English-language texts for the British-American market.

HarperCollins recently declared to have signed an agreement with a company specialising in artificial intelligence, the name of which was not made public. According to a spokesperson for the publishing house, the contract would allow the limited use of some backlist non-fiction titles for training the anonymous company's AI models.

The publishing house is now proposing what has been decided to the authors in its ranks, offering a small compensation to those who make their works available for the current project - in any case, each member has the choice of joining the agreement or renouncing the opportunity.