The Bookseller – News – Academic authors ‘shocked’ after Taylor & Francis sells access to their research to Microsoft AI

Authors have expressed shock after news that academic publisher Taylor & Francis, which owns Routledge, had sold access to its authors’ research as part of an artificial intelligence (AI) partnership with Microsoft – a deal worth almost £8m ($10m) in its first year.

The deal with Microsoft was included in a business update from the publisher’s parent company in May this year. However, academics published by the group say they were not informed of the AI ​​deal, were not given the opportunity to opt out, and are not receiving any additional payment for the tech company’s use of their research.

The Society of Authors said it was “concerned that publishers are signing deals with technology companies without first consulting authors and creators.”

Dr Ruth Alison Clemens, a professor of modern English literature whose work has been published by Taylor & Francis and Routledge, said the authors had not been contacted about the AI ​​deal.

Clemens said The bookstore :”I only learned about this through word of mouth in the last few days. I was shocked that they didn’t make this information more widely known to their authors, as the use of AI and LLMs is a major concern for academic researchers today.”

A spokesperson for Taylor & Francis Group, which is part of Informa, a FTSE 100 international B2B events, B2B digital services and university markets group, confirmed The bookstore that it “provides Microsoft with non-exclusive access to advanced learning content and data to help improve the relevance and performance of AI systems.”

The deal, details of which were released by Informa in a trading update in May, stipulates that Informa will receive more than $10 million for “initial access to data” of the works it owns the rights to, with a recurring payment of an undisclosed sum to be made over the following three years.

When contacted by The bookstore, Taylor & Francis said it “protects the integrity of our authors’ work and the limits on verbatim reproduction of the text, as well as the rights of authors to receive royalty payments in accordance with their author agreements.”

Informa expects revenues to fall to just under £3.5bn in the current financial year, up from £3.2bn in 2023.

Taylor & Francis, with its portfolio of specialist publishing imprints (Routledge, CRC Press, F1000), revealed in March that its revenues had risen 4.3% for 2023 to £619m, with adjusted operating profit up 4.4% to £217.9m.

One of the biggest concerns Clemens raised is whether it is possible for Taylor & Francis authors to opt out of the AI ​​partnership with Microsoft. Clemens said The bookstore:”Taylor & Francis did not specify whether an opt-out policy was in place or contemplated. But since they did not inform their authors of the agreement in the first place, any opt-out policy is now no longer functional.”