10,000 Writers Publish Blank Book to Protest AI Training
Authors including Kazuo Ishiguro release 'empty' book as copyright protest against AI companies scraping their work.
Around 10,000 authors just made the most passive-aggressive publishing move possible. They released a book with nothing in it.
The project, titled Don't Steal This Book, is a deliberately empty publication designed to protest AI companies training models on copyrighted written work without permission or compensation. Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, bestselling historical novelist Philippa Gregory, and thriller writer Richard Osman are among the high-profile names attached.
The concept is blunt: if AI firms are going to consume authors' words to build products, here's a book with zero words to consume. It's a copyright campaign wrapped in a stunt, and the participant count — roughly 10,000 writers — gives it real weight.
The publishing industry has been escalating its fight against generative AI training practices for months. This is the loudest salvo yet.