← The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
Fair Use, Copyright, And Licensing. AI And The Author Business With Alicia Wright
00:55:31
How does generative AI relate to fair use when it comes to copyright? What are the possibilities for AI licensing? Alicia Wright shares her thoughts on generative AI for authors. In the intro, Publishing leaders share 9 Bold Predictions for 2025 [BookB...
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- [00:01]
Joanna Penn
Welcome to the Creative Penn Podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, craft and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots more@thecreativepenn.com and that's Pen with a double n. And here's the show Hello Creatives. I'm Johanna Penn and this is episode number 792 of the podcast and it is Saturday 25th January 2025. As I record this in today's show I talk to intellectual property lawyer and author Alicia Wright, who has degrees in computer science, law and also an mfa. So she is perfectly positioned to talk about artificial intelligence and generative AI and how to think about it as writers and why we shouldn't be scared about it. We talk about copyright, fair use, licensing, prompting, quality, working with the AI tools as collaborators, AI agents and much more. So that's coming up in the interview section in Writing and Publishing Things. First, a correction from last week's interview with Kevin J. Anderson. He mentioned using a tool for AI transcription of his dictated words and mistakenly said Mac write. But he asked me to update date this it should be MacWhisper and I've put that in the show notes as ever so BookBub has published an article this week, publishing leaders share nine bold predictions for 2025 and the BookBub blog is very good and they usually focus on marketing. Obviously it's at insights.bookbub.com Links in the show notes. So I'll just go through a few of these prediction 1. Innovative new ways of consuming stories will emerge while digital formats will continue to grow in popularity, that it touches on library markets for digital and audiobooks and AI driven personalization, which I think is an interesting trend. 2. Legal frameworks and licensing deals will develop to govern the use of generative AI as adoption soars. And I've got another news piece coming up on that three. AI enabled translation and narration will open the door to more authors offering their books in new languages and formats. They have a quote from Michelle Cobb, executive Director of the Audio Publishers association, who said human narration is still at the forefront of what audio publishers do, though the integration of AI and automation tools has made audiobook production easier, especially for post production. Additionally, titles that would not previously have reached the sales threshold for human voice production can now be produced, allowing for greater accessibility of the titles in the audio format. 4. New tools will remove barriers to publishing, ushering new voices and compounding existing discoverability challenges. Elizabeth Ann west, author and founder of the Future Fiction Academy, says, as self publishing democratized distribution, AI is democratizing creation. People with full time jobs or responsibilities, health challenges and disabilities, neurodiversity and more are able to write and publish at the speed the market now requires. And Alex Newton, founder of K Lytics, says AI breaks down the last barrier to writing the book you want to write. Whatever your barrier is outlining plot, writing, craft, research, grammar, spelling, you name it. Every person on this planet has at least one or more stories to tell. We will see more of them. And I love this. And some people are scared that if everyone in the world wrote a book, it would just mean an absolute nightmare in terms of too many books. In my mind. If you think about as a writer, even if you wrote a lot of books, the most prolific authors in history, you know, like Isaac Asimov with 400 books and Nora Roberts who writes a book a month and you know all of that, then if you think about how many books we read compared to how many books we write as authors, as soon as you become somebody who wants to write, you're going to read, whether that's books on craft, whether that's other books in your genre. So anyone who wants to write is also going to read. Therefore, in my mind, we should encourage every single person in the world to write a book because that will mean a hell of a lot more people will be reading. Unfortunately, I don't think most people want to write truly and the stats are that not everyone is reading either. Jonathan and I were talking about this the other day. Like the number of people who actually read books and talk about books is just so small compared to the number of people talking about music or film or TV shows. So yeah, let's just encourage anyone who wants to write to write however they do it. Six Author businesses will thrive thanks to efficiency enhancements from new technologies. This is where I am quoted and I say AI agents will handle many publishing and marketing tasks, allowing single author businesses to thrive by focusing more on creativity while efficiently managing operations. The article also covers hybrid publishing and other business models fighting censorship and book banning, building community with authenticity as well as fan driven promotion, author entrepreneur businesses and much more. It is a comprehensive article with lots of quotes from different people in traditional publishing in the indie market. So definitely check that out at the BookBub blog link in the show notes. So I know we're going to come on to more AI in the episode interview with Alicia, including agents. But we also recorded this before OpenAI launched operator. It's not available to me here in the uk, but some people have it in the US at the moment. And this is the new agent model and essentially what the agents are they can log on and do things on your behalf. And that's essentially why I said that about AI. Agents will handle many publishing and marketing tasks and Alicia and I talk about it in a more sort of an overall framework in the interview. But I wanted to mention that Operator has been launched. I'll link to an article in the Verge about it. You can watch some video. There's certainly lots of videos on X of and in fact one of the videos is someone using an offer OpenAI's operator to discover things on Kickstarter, which I thought was awesome. But certainly by the end of the year there will be agents in many of the tools we already use. I will be using them as soon as I can and I will of course demo in my Patreon when I get access. So still with AI, but also the adoption in traditional publishing Bertelsman, who own Penguin Random House as well as a whole load of media companies across print, radio, music, film and tv. Seriously, if you look up Bertelsmann and what they own, it is enormous. They have agreed a strategic collaboration with OpenAI who own ChatGPT. Bertelsman intends to work with OpenAI to expand and accelerate the use of AI in the media services and education sectors. Bertelsmann is one of the first European corporations to scale the OpenAI technology ChatGPT across multiple brands around the world. The agreement includes employees, use of ChatGPT as well as the development of new products and services. A few comments from the press release, again linked in the show notes AI has enormous potential to drive innovation, efficiency and creativity. We will continue to support the work of our creative professionals through a targeted and responsible use of AI. We're thrilled to be working at the intersection of AI and media. That's what I consider I'm doing too working at the intersection of AI and media. Bertelsman's goal is to support the creative process in its content businesses with generative AI wherever possible. So yes, we are content businesses creatives and this is one of the biggest publishers in the world embracing generative AI. So yes, I would definitely expect expect anyone publishing with a Penguin Random House imprint, of which there are very many, to be getting some kind of contract update around licensing. But yes, keeping an eye on that. And of course in the upcoming interview Alicia and I don't discuss politics as I generally don't. But since recording the interview only like a couple of weeks ago. President Trump has signed lots of executive orders, many around energy and AI acceleration, including a $500 billion new project, Stargate, for AI infrastruct. So the tech acceleration has speeded up even since we recorded this interview. Interesting times indeed. In personal news, I am still writing Death Valley, a thriller. You can see the COVID and read more about it at the Kickstarter Pre launch page jfpenn.com Death Valley and I've also been working on a pitch deck and an outline for the adaptation of Day of the Vikings, which is a very, very interesting process which I will be taking to Berlin in mid February for the Berlinale, the Berlin Film Festival.
- [09:33]
Alicia Wright
And I mentioned this last week and.
- [09:35]
Joanna Penn
How kind of scared I was and I have now reframed this around my comfort zone and how much out of my comfort zone it is now. Back in 2012, I went to the London Book Fair for the first time, which is a book fair in the same way that the Berlinale is a film fair. It's all about licensing and selling IP and people who make this IP come together, do deals. So in 2012 I went to the London Book Fair for the first time. I felt such an imposter, an outsider. It was out of my comfort zone. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. All the feelings I'm feeling now, but within a few years of attending the London Book Fair, I was one of the speakers. And in fact this, this year is the first year I won't be speaking and I'm not even attending as it is on my actual 50th birthday. And so we're going to be in Iceland. So I'm now thinking of the Berlinale as the beginning of my next decade. And if all I do is see how it works, get to know the venues, just feel how the whole thing works. Like I remember going to Frankfurt Book Fair and it was kind of the same thing. Like once you, once you've been to these things and you understand how the meetings work, what kind of apps they use, what rooms to go to, you start to get to know things. And if I can organize a few meetings, of which I already have one in the diary now, then I, I, it will be amazing. Also, I'm going to revisit the Pergamon Museum, which was part of the inspiration for my thriller End of Days, the last time I was in, well, one of the last times I was in Berlin and, and that is awesome. The Ishtar Gate is there from ancient Babylon. And so yeah, look forward to seeing some pictures of Berlin on my Instagram. F Pen Author and so yeah, I'm kind of just letting go of expectation. I will prepare in advance. I am now accredited for the film market so that's awesome. I said. I basically said I am a author and rights holder looking to license my work and so I got accredited. I'm preparing in advance. I have great hopes and ambitions but low expectations and we will see how it goes. If you are in film and tv. And thanks for those people who have contacted me. It's very useful if you're in film and tv, have tips or you're going to Berlin and can meet up. Please also email me joannathecreativepenn.com right. So thanks for all your emails and comments and photos this week. There were lots of them, which was awesome. Here's just a few comments epossible on YouTube said, oh this was so good for the interview with Kevin J. Anderson. For some reason, even though I've been doing it for years, I do feel justified that my creativity is heightened when I'm not at the computer, but rather out in nature. Kevin talks about how he broke his ankle and couldn't walk, so his productivity went down by 50% and e possible understood that. Lois says, wonderful podcast. Kevin is a master teacher. One of the best and most enjoyable things I've ever done is to enroll in the Master's program in publishing through Western Colorado University with Kevin as the director. You can't go wrong. Thanks Lois. I'm glad you're enjoying that. Simon sent cute pictures of his dogs, Luna, the Black Standard Poodle, and Amber, a miniature doodle, out walking while listening. And Tyler said, love the episode with Kevin and attached is my photo of where I listened in my office. I'm holding the manuscript of my 11th novel, currently in editing. I truly don't believe I would have come this far without finding you and your show. Lovely photo of Tyler holding up his printed manuscript and the look on his face. I totally understand that look Tyler. The look on Tyler's face says look what I just made and it's such a wonderful smile. So yes, I always love to see your photos of things you've made, like books and where you're listening to the show or your favourite cemetery or church or Gothic cathedral. I'm always a I love those. So please leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel. Message me on X at the Creative Pen or email me. Send me pictures of where you're listening joannathecreativepenn.com I love to hear from you. Makes this more of a conversation. So today's show is sponsored by my Wonderful community@patreon.com TheCreativePen thanks to the six new patrons who've joined this week and thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. If you join the community, you get access to all my backlist videos and audio, covering topics on writing, craft and author business, as well as tutorials and demos on AI tools. And my patron only Q and A solo episodes. And we have live office hours coming up this week. And of course I do that live and answer questions and do demos. But also the replay is shared in video and audio. The Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. And of course you can pop in and out as you like. You get access to everything, all the backlist content and Q&As. So if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us@patreon.com the Creative Pen. Right, let's get into the interview.
- [15:03]
Alicia Wright
Alicia Wright is an intellectual property lawyer for a technology company and also writes science fiction and mystery as Alicia Ellis. With two degrees in computer science and an MFA in writing popular fiction, she is expertly placed to comment on AI as it applies to writers, which we're talking about today. So welcome to the show, Alicia.
- [15:25]
Alicia Ellis
Thank you so much, Jo. I'm happy to be here.
- [15:28]
Alicia Wright
Oh, I'm excited to talk to you.
- [15:29]
Joanna Penn
So first up, tell us a bit.
- [15:30]
Alicia Wright
More about you and how you got into writing and also into AI and technology.
- [15:36]
Alicia Ellis
All right. Well, I should say that I got into AI and technology first. I was always one of those science and math people. Math was my favorite subject in school. Not a lot of people say that, but I loved math. I loved the sciences. I always was reading forward in my tech in my textbooks. And then my mother didn't want us watching tv. So we read a lot of books and I got into writing poetry, writing song lyrics, writing short stories and the creative side of me came out. It never occurred to me to write something longer until, because I was a math science person until I got into law school. And there you have to write all the time, write briefs, you know, these 30 page documents. And then it occurred to me that, hey, I'd like to write a novel. So I would say the technology interest was always there and the creative interest, the writing came later. And in My work as a patent attorney. I have encountered AI related applications throughout the years, even generative AI technologies as far as 10 years back. So I had an interest in that even before it became relevant to the writing industry.
- [16:49]
Alicia Wright
So when did you get into writing fiction? Like how many years have you been writing fiction as well as doing your incredible job?
- [16:56]
Alicia Ellis
I have been writing fiction, specifically long form fiction, for as long as I have been a lawyer. And the time is almost exact. I know this because I was in my final year of law school and sort of had this crisis like I'm graduating law school, do I want to be a lawyer? And I spent time thinking about that, just sat down for really a day and went through what I would do if it weren't. If it wasn't law. And I decided that I did want to do law, but I also wanted to write novels. And as soon as I graduated law school, I enrolled in some local writing courses. So I've been practicing law and writing for the same amount of time, which.
- [17:38]
Alicia Wright
Is approximately.
- [17:42]
Alicia Ellis
17 years.
- [17:45]
Joanna Penn
Fantastic.
- [17:46]
Alicia Ellis
But. But I got into publishing, indie publishing, maybe 2013, but I've been writing for 17 and a half years.
- [17:55]
Alicia Wright
Brilliant. So you mentioned there that you obviously as a patent attorney, you look at AI applications and you did mention using a bit of generative technology there. So how do you currently use AI tools as part of your creative and business processes?
- [18:10]
Alicia Ellis
In my business work, well, I see a lot of AI technologies in what that I'm writing patent applications for. And that's what I was referring to before. But in managing a patent portfolio at the cybersecurity firm where I work right now, I definitely use AI technologies to help inventors organize their thoughts when they submit to us to do analyses. Sometimes I'm dealing with a huge patent portfolio and AI can help organize the analyses and my thoughts on that in my writing. I use it mostly at the planning stages as a brainstorming partner. I love AI as a brainstorming partner. I always tell it that it's my junior partner because it tends to go off on its own. And I like to reel it in to run the show, if you will. But I give it my ideas. Often I'll ask it to say, give me five ideas how to put these things together, or give me 10 ideas how to put these things together. And even if they're bad ideas, it helps me sort of organize my thoughts. Like, why don't I like these ideas? So together we walk through what I want to do. We create a save the cat outline, which I usually start it Off. Once we have all the ideas on the table, I ask it to create the save the cat outline. And usually I have a lot of changes. We make those changes and then we'll break it down into a C list that follows the. The three act structure. I often have it generate character sketches and settings sketches because honestly, I'm no good with thinking about what does this setting look like? Like, what kind of house is this? You know, bricks, facade. I don't care. So the AI is really helpful with that. And there's a lot of editing, a lot of back and forth. AI is a great partner for brainstorming and plotting when we get into the writing. My authorial voice is really important to me in part because probably because I have diagnosed ocd. I have experimented with using AI in pretty much every aspect of my process. But for me personally, the writing part I have to do because I will spend more time editing AI output than I would have just writing it myself. So I tend to use dictation and input the dictation output into say, chatgpt to clean it up and they'll catch the dictation error. So I have a much cleaner copy going forward. And when I'm done writing, I'll use a little AI for developmental editing.
- [20:53]
Alicia Wright
I love that you, you sound similar to me in the way you're using it. You're using the word partner, your junior partner, your collaborator, your. And you use the word we, which I really like as well because I feel that too. Like with Claude, I feel this is my almost my not so much co writer, but like you said, collaborator. It really is a backwards and forwards way of doing it. And I can hear the smile in your voice and I have a smile in my voice as well. Because this is fun, right? This makes it more fun for us.
- [21:23]
Alicia Ellis
It's so fun. And I feel like my work is better, that this brings out a better side of me, things, connections that I hadn't made, problems that I didn't foresee. It's having a partner and so that it's. It's improved. It's not just me, it's. It's me. Plus some quote, artificial intelligence.
- [21:44]
Joanna Penn
Yes.
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Alicia Wright
Now, so we could geek out about how amazing it is all day, but I did want to ask you about some of the objections that authors have because you did this great talk at Author Nation and you were so clear on it. And I. I don't think there are many people in our community who have degrees in computer science and law and an MFA and are an active indie author I think you're the only person, right?
- [22:06]
Alicia Ellis
Maybe.
- [22:07]
Alicia Wright
Maybe. So let's start with one of the most common objections from authors, which is, is AI companies stole our work. So what are your thoughts on this and how does it relate to fair use?
- [22:19]
Alicia Ellis
So when I think of the word stolen, I think of a. An illegal taking. So I think, are we talking about copyright infringement here? I would say in. In my opinion that the work is not stolen. And the reason I phrase it that way, my opinion is because I'm sure a lot of folks know there's ongoing litigation about whether the use of copyrighted work works in training data is copyright infringement. And until those are actually decided, until those cases are actually decided, I can't say definitively, but I feel pretty confident that the training of AI using copyrighted works is fair use. Fair use is an exception to copyright infringement. Basically, it says, yes, we copied copyrighted works, except we did it for a use where this exception is cut out. Fair use exists in order to allow us to grow from existing copyrighted works to spur creativity so that you can create, based on what already exists, one of the key factors. There's four factors in the US that courts consider for fair use, and one of the key factors is, is your use transformative? And I think that's really important to what fair use is about. Have you created something new? Have you created something that can be used in a different way? And I feel strongly that the use of copyrighted works to train AI is so transformative and is what fair use is about. There's case law that's related to using copyrighted works, even for AI in the past, but not for generative AI in the way we're talking about now. And I feel that the case law is pushing US courts towards saying that this is fair use. We will see probably in a couple years for sure. But I would say that I don't feel like AI is theft. I feel like it will be shown at a later date that AI is not theft. But I can't say 100%. I certainly think that it is premature to say that it is theft.
- [24:33]
Alicia Wright
And it's interesting here. I would have thought that the US would be further ahead on this, and maybe with your incoming Trump administration, those cases might get settled more quickly. But here in the uk, our government has literally, like yesterday come out with the AI plan, and they are almost pushing for an exception around data training in copyright, which is really interesting, and we have a very different rule around this. But, yes. So the argument here with the British government is that these strict things restrain innovation or restrict innovation, and that, as you mentioned, fair use is so we can have more innovation and we don't want to stifle that.
- [25:12]
Alicia Ellis
Right, Exactly.
- [25:13]
Alicia Wright
I guess another thing that I hear is that ChatGPT and all of this, they're just plagiarism machines. They can't create anything original. They can only spit out things that come from other people's work. So what are your thoughts on that?
- [25:27]
Alicia Ellis
I think calling AI plagiarism, saying that that's all it does, reflects a basic misunderstanding of how AI works at a technical level. These, these generative AI models, at their core are statistical models. They've taken in red, if you will, millions, billions of pieces of writing or images, in the case of the image generators, and based on basically statistics, there's a lot. It's much more complex than that, but I'm going to simplify it by saying it's a statistical model. It determines what token. A token could be a word or a symbol, like a period, what token comes after the previous token. And it forms output based on that one token at a time. And the reason I want to emphasize that it's one token at a time is that you're not lifting even phrases from existing work. It's not at the phrase level. It's at the word level. Just like you and I write, you can't take a combination of words taken from, from millions of other works and say you plagiarized it because you took a word that was over here and a word that was over there. It's not a logical reflection of how AI works at the technical level. Just asking, can it create something that, that it can only create things that already exist. I would say humans also can already only create things that already exist. We, we all learn from what exists. You're gonna see cliche phrases in AI output because statistically you'll see words together that you often see together in writing. So you're going to see things like she released the breath that she didn't know she'd been holding. Because as you see that a lot of other works, but in the same way that that's not plagiarism when you write it, it's not plagiarism when the AI writes it either.
- [27:30]
Alicia Wright
What about, see, I keep hearing as well, people say, oh, this is a crap book. It must have been generated by AI with the assumption that only bad quality writing can be generated. So given that you and I use this a lot, our prompts are very, very different to somebody who is brand new to generative AI. Do you think that the quality, and I know quality is a tough word, but is the quality of writing from generative AI when you use the right prompt prompts? What's your opinion of that?
- [28:03]
Alicia Ellis
I think prompts make a huge difference. And especially if you're using AI for the writing part, say for a first draft or for a final draft, however you use it in the actual writing part, I think it's important to prompt it to write like your authorial voice. And the more you do that, I think it's going to be closer to you and may even be better writing, assuming that your author voice is well developed. I think if you just ask the AI. Well, I've seen from experience that if you just ask the AI to write something, it's not necessarily going to be a style that's appropriate for what you're writing. But the more specific you are about how that writing should look, or even give it samples of your writing, describe your own writing, the writing gets better. And by better, I mean closer to what you as an author want it to be. The more specific you are in your prompt, the more you learn how to talk to the AI in a way that it interprets the way you want it to.
- [29:09]
Joanna Penn
Yeah, I agree.
- [29:10]
Alicia Wright
I find that. I mean, sometimes my prompts can be like 100 words. You know, with Claude, I'm prompting with whole sentences and beats and all do all kinds of things that at the beginning of my use, I didn't necessarily know how to do. And I feel like the more you use it. And again, coming back to the co writer idea, the collaborator idea, it's like working with another person. And you mentioned your ocd. I'm not ocd, but I'm certainly into control around my writing and I find found it very hard to work with a human co writer, but I love working with clients for this reason. But it's developed over time. Right. You don't just do it from your first interaction.
- [29:52]
Alicia Ellis
Right. I 100% agree with that. I've been using AI in my work, in my planning, from my writing, and bits and pieces in my actual writing since it first went mainstream, what, the end of 2022. And my prompts are so much longer now than they were then because I've learned how they're going to respond. And then my prompts for different AI models are different. My prompts for Claude might be different than my prompts for ChatGPT because I have a sense of how they interpret things. And my prompts have gotten More specific. And I chain my prompts together because that's something you learn. It's a skill. Using generative AI as a tool.
- [30:38]
Alicia Wright
Yes. And that is why I've been harping on about this for so long. Because every month that goes past that, people don't even try it for little things. They are missing out on time to learn what is essentially what. I think it kind of underpins the next technological change in our society. A bit like the Internet changed so much. This is going to change so much. Do you feel it's that significant as.
- [31:03]
Alicia Ellis
Well, that it's going to change a lot? Absolutely. And there's a lot of change that I look forward to. I'm interested in how the writing industry is going to look when these legal cases are decided. Speculate and say that it's determined that it is okay to train AI models based on copyrighted works. I'm interested to see how those who are so anti AI in the writing industry would respond to that. But more than that, I'm interested in, in what's coming next. What's going to happen with, with AI next. I'm. I'm hard of hearing and I'm really looking forward to outside of the industry. Outside of the writing industry. Some sort of captions. You know they're making smart glasses. I want smart glasses with captions. I'm just waiting for it. I'm rubbing my hands together. I can't wait. Wait. Some of this stuff is going to be life changing.
- [31:59]
Joanna Penn
Wow.
- [32:00]
Alicia Wright
Okay, so you mean you're looking at someone wearing the smart glasses and as they speak you'll see captions of what they're saying.
- [32:07]
Alicia Ellis
That's the dream. Yep.
- [32:10]
Alicia Wright
That is amazing. And of course, why wouldn't you have that? That just seems very sensible. So I don't even think that's that far away, surely. Let's hope so. Well, look, let's come to those court cases. So in the usa, there are still these open court cases again against various AI companies, but there are also now far more companies that have done intellectual property licensing deals for data training, including some publishers and media companies. Now, as we record this in the middle of January 2025, a company called CreatedByHumans AI has just launched and they're partnering with the Authors Guild in the US and the aim is to help authors license their IP for training and AI uses. Now this is a non exclusive thing and authors can choose how the data is used. Now what are your thoughts on the opportunities of this kind of licensing and what should authors keep an eye out for in any contracts.
- [33:08]
Alicia Ellis
I think the main thing I want to say about this is if you're being offered a licensing contract for using your work to train AI, that I would jump on that because it may be that soon courts bring down decisions that this is fair use and in that case they can license, they can use your work without a license if that decision comes down. So if someone's offering you money for it now, I would say get into those negotiations and think about getting that locked down. But specifically with respect to terms, I would say know the scope, the type of model that your work is going to be used for. If it's going to be used to, for a general purpose that could be used to create competing works, then maybe you want to be paid more than if it's going to be used internally at law firms, for example. So no know what it's going to be used for because that, that tells you what the value of this license is. I would say make sure that your terms don't include derivative works or are very specific about what derivative works are, are included in what you're giving because you, you don't want someone using AI to generate works that are directly based off your work, like SQLs. Just make sure that that's something that's out of the scope of the license. I would exclude anything about sub licenses, unless you're getting paid for a sub license, ideally put a term on it on, on the licensing of your work. Because this area is developing and you don't know what's going to happen five years from now, ten years from now. There may be whole new clauses that you want in there because of how technology has developed. So I would personally, to avoid a license that's 20 years or the term of your copyright, because you want to be able to develop that license as the technology develops. I would also limit how your work is going to appear in outputs, meaning the percentage of your work that can appear in outfits. It is unlikely that with a general purpose chatbot where millions or billions of works are used to train that your work, a significant portion of your work would appear in the output because it wouldn't have that large an input on the statistical model that is the AI model. However, you don't know how, how big the model is going to be or how many works are going to be used to train it. So I think it could be worthwhile to have a percentage, say only 2% of my work at a time can appear in any given output because that's something that they can program as. As a layer above a generative AI model so that it sort of screens that before. Before any output gets put out to a user. So that's something that I would have in there as well. In general, make sure your contract has remedies so that if there's a breach, that you can cancel the contract, for example, as opposed to just getting paid out or whatever remedies you prefer. Make sure they're outlined in there. And a right, ideally a right to audit what's happening with your. Your. With your work in the training so that you can take advantage of those remedies. Because if you can't see what's going on, then the remedies aren't doing you much good.
- [36:46]
Alicia Wright
Those are all really useful things. But it's funny because you. The first thing you said was get into this because things might change and we might not get anything if it. If it becomes sort of fair use. But the other thing I thought is we almost have a burning platform on the creation of synthetic data. So I've been looking at the OpenAI's O1 model, and some people are saying that the reason it was created, well, one of the reasons is because it can create really good synthetic data to train the O3 models. And I was like, oh, wow.
- [37:14]
Joanna Penn
Yeah, I know.
- [37:15]
Alicia Wright
And I was like, wow, if they can do really good synthetic data, they don't even need to take our data. Although I guess the original sin as such may still stand. I don't know. I mean, any thoughts on that?
- [37:27]
Alicia Ellis
Well, I hadn't heard that about the O1 and the O3 model. But synthetic data, that's something that I'm excited about because I want these models to improve. I want them to use my work to train the models. Savannah can write more like me, make my job easier, but I'm excited for more training data. I hope that more folks in the writing industry get on board and allow their works to be licensed if allowance is needed. But even if allowance is not needed, I know that folks in the AI industry are feeling the pushback from the writing industry and it may slow them down. I don't want them to be slowed down. I want to see this stuff develop.
- [38:12]
Alicia Wright
And it's interesting that you both want our data in the models and partly. I also think there's a big change in generative search in that I mainly use ChatGPT now to do my searches. So I've been trying to do sort of book discovery. You know, give me 10 books that are action adventure thrillers with a female protagonist you know, set in this area and, and then it gives me 10 and I'm like, well, what about this book by JF Penn? And like trying to train it almost to think of my books as well. And I what do you think about generative search and people using these models for searching? And if we're not there, we just won't be found.
- [38:47]
Alicia Ellis
If we're not there, they just won't be found. What do you mean by that?
- [38:51]
Alicia Wright
Well, as in, the models have access to certain data and certain data that's on the Internet. So a lot of the time it can look at Goodreads or it can look at Amazon, but it's like I want ChatGPT and Claude to know JF Pen so that if someone is searching for something to read, and a lot of the apps that go on top of things now are powered by these tools, I want the models to know my writing so that it can promote me or recommend me if people go looking for things that, like, I write.
- [39:23]
Alicia Ellis
Oh, for sure. I, I know there are folks that there are anti AI folks in the writing industry who don't want AI anywhere near their work. I'm. I'm more what you just said. I want AI to be able to find me. I want AI to be able to write more like me. I believe strongly in, in my own creativity and my ability to create something that is specifically me. And because of that, I'm not concerned about AI being near my work. I want it to help me. I'm not scared about how its use is going to impact my marketability because I, I know what I've got.
- [40:06]
Alicia Wright
I love that. And I actually think the same thing. And I wonder if this is creative confidence that comes from, like, both of us have been 17 years writing and previously I was in tech as well. Not quite as deep as you, but I'm confident with tech. So this kind of creative confidence in our own work and in our own worth that some newer writers might not have, I guess. Is there anything you can say to newer writers who might not have as much creative confidence as you?
- [40:36]
Alicia Ellis
This may be strange coming from someone who is very fond of AI, have a lot of fun with it, but I would say that maybe building that creative confidence means not using AI for a while, means discovering who you are as an author, what sort of things you like to write before bringing in a partner, be it AI or a human writer of another sort, to really find your uniqueness and your identity as a writer before you. You start adding tools into the mix.
- [41:13]
Alicia Wright
That is Actually, a really good point. You and I have both already done enough books, I guess, and written enough that we're confident in our voice that we found before AI. But then I just wonder if maybe people who are younger in the usage of these tools or people, you know, younger in their journey or just physically younger, are going to do things differently. Like, you and I grew up iPhones, we grew up without television. My mum was the same as your mum. We weren't allowed to watch TV until I was about 12. So I feel like maybe people will develop their voice differently now.
- [41:50]
Alicia Ellis
That's a really good point. And I honestly don't know what that will look like, but I'm excited to see it.
- [41:57]
Alicia Wright
Yeah, me too. Okay, so let's just circle back on copyright because another sticking point for authors in using these tools is they're afraid that they won't have copyright in their finished work if they use AI tools tools in any way. So where's the line here? And yeah, I guess how is it in the U.S. because it's different in the UK, right?
- [42:20]
Alicia Ellis
In the U.S. first of all, expression that is generated by artificial intelligence by a machine is not copyrighted, is not copyrightable. However, your authorship is copyrightable. And thus when you combine your authorship with something, with the output, an AI generated output, then the part of that, that is your creative expression is still copyrightable. So what that means is if there's a combination, if you're using AI as a partner, then whatever expression that you contribute to that final product is copyrightable in the us and thus say someone was to copy a chapter of your book that has you in it, as opposed to telling the AI in a short paragraph to write a chapter, you know, if you've been a part of selecting what goes in that chapter, arranging that chapter, editing words that were initially output by the AI, though that's all your expression. And you can't, one cannot copy that chapter without copying that expression, which is yours. So there's still copyright eligibility when you've used AI, depending on how you use it. And the Copyright office has, has confirmed this. This isn't all theoretical here. The, the copyright office has handled some cases. There was a semi, well known case with a graphic novel where the author had generated each image using AI, but the Copyright office determined that the arrangement of those images, the selection of those images and arranging them into a story, was copyright protected. And thus you can't just take that graphic novel and copy it and sell it because the author's expression is in there and that that's that's the case with COVID art as well as written work as well as, as audiobooks with, with AI narration are a little different because your copyright expression, your copyrighted expression is already in the input and the output is, is just your words spoken. So you don't even have to edit that output. It already has your expression in it. And, and is copyright eligible in the US and, and I, I know in the UK there's there, there are even stronger protections for copyright eligibility of AI generated works. I think if you, if you direct the creation of it, it's yours. Yeah.
- [45:03]
Alicia Wright
Yeah. And I think that's probably why so many people are putting offices here. So OpenAI has an office here. And I mean Runway ML, the film come, you know, the, the image generator, a video generator. They've got an office here and are partnering with the UK film company company. It's essentially like if a machine generates something, it belongs to the person who, who directed it. And I was thinking about like, I like the word director because increasingly, if you think about a film director and you know, people will have their favorite movie directors, those directors direct, have a vision, have a creative vision, but they are not acting every scene. They're not doing all the sets. They're not, they're not doing every piece of work in a movie. They are the director and a music arranger, you know, a music producer, famous music producer. So I almost wonder if that's the direction we're going. Is this much bigger role where we can do much bigger things with a lot more help?
- [45:58]
Alicia Ellis
I think so. I think that there's a lot that, that we can do with AI to create and expand our creativity. Besides just writing, we, we can direct a little movie now ourselves with AI generated visual. However, I also predict, I don't know for sure that we're going to see copyright eligibility of AI generated outputs that are unedited in the US we're going to see some of that become protectable. Right now, that's really shaky ground, except with the respect, with the exception of audiobooks and the like. But it's really shaky ground. Say that it's AI generated image as is would get any kind of copyright protection. But I think we may see that depending on how specific your prompt is, that there may be some copyright protection based on the creativity that you put into that.
- [46:54]
Alicia Wright
Yeah, I think. And as these models get better and better, it becomes you can have a much bigger process. So let it come to that because we're still in these early days, like, we're literally like 2001 in terms of the Internet. And Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, just shared in a new blog post last week, we, we believe that in 2025 we may see the first AI agents join the workforce and materially change the output of companies. And I'm like, hell yeah, give me some agents to do things and I'll do the stuff I love and my little AI agents will, will do the rest. I mean, the word agent's difficult in the publishing industry, but the think about little, little, little bots or little employees doing your work. So what do you think about agents and how might we use whatever they might be in the future?
- [47:41]
Alicia Ellis
I personally love a social media agent because I am no good at keeping up with what's going on my social media accounts. They will go dark for a month and a half and then I'll remember that I have them and should use them. So I'd love a social media agent. I kind of have have a custom GPT, a prompt set up to, to help me plan my social media. And I've actually tried some products that try to be social media agents that I don't love. But I feel that the writing industry is going to be reluctant to take on these agents. Just based on what I've seen about how protective the writing industry has been. Some people in the writing industry about related industries like cover artists and voice narrators, how protective they've been wanting writers who want to use AI to hire a cover artist and being very insistent about that. Some anti, anti AI folks and being very insistent about hiring a human narrator for your book. I think that we may see that same protectiveness over virtual assistants. And when we're talking about these agents like a marketing agent or a social media agent, these are things that one might hire a virtual assistant for. And I think we may see some pushback from this same segment of the writing industry that's opposed to using AI generated cover art. We're going to see some pushback saying, hey, you should hire a virtual assistant instead.
- [49:22]
Alicia Wright
Oh, I totally agree, but I think that people are going to use use these things anyway because especially coming back to creative confidence, again, if you are strong in what you want, then actually using these agents and you mentioned in like a chain earlier, a chain of prompts and I just have these amazing ideas about how I want a chain of agents like doing book marketing for me and there is absolutely no way it would be affordable to have that.
- [49:49]
Alicia Ellis
Right.
- [49:49]
Alicia Wright
Humans do it, right? Right?
- [49:52]
Alicia Ellis
Absolutely. Yeah. Affordability is a huge issue. If, if you weren't going to hire someone. I don't understand the objection to passing along to AI to do for you so that it gets done as opposed to not getting done. And I've actually used virtual assistants in the past and it didn't work so well because I'm so particular. And first of all, I felt like a jerk wanting to tweak things all the time. I don't feel like a jerk when I talk to AI and. And then it wasn't saving me time because of the amount of time I was spending tweaking things. So for me this would be. Having an AI social media agent would be something that I wouldn't hire someone for anyway. I don't think that's a requirement for using AI, but it, it expands what we can do. Right? Having these, these agents, having AI in general. And I.
- [50:49]
Alicia Wright
That, yeah, I mean I think marketing is probably the biggest thing that people want to use these tools for. And I see that one could almost have an agent per, per book even who's responsible for making sure that book gets marketed. I mean, I mean we've got multiple books and I find myself marketing whichever one I've. That catches my eye. Like, but there's so much of a backlist I just completely ignore. So I'd really love to have. Have things surfaced from my backlist of work. You know, have an. And also things like having an AI. I've just started using the tasks. Have you done that? They only just started it like yesterday. The Chat GPT tasks.
- [51:29]
Alicia Ellis
Tasks. Oh, I have not. I noticed it a couple days ago and instead I started using projects. I recently restarted my ChatGPT Pro or Plus plus account. I sort of switch which AI I want to use at any given time. So right now I'm digging into their chat GPT projects. But digging into the tasks is definitely on my to do list. I'm hoping I can get it to remind me of stuff that we've generated that I need to do.
- [52:03]
Alicia Wright
Yeah, well that's. So for people listening, this is brand new. It's very, very small. As in you ask it to do a task and it will. Will do something for you at a certain time. So I, I've just set my chat dpt so every morning it will bring me five headlines with that cross the boundaries of archaeology, religion, architecture, genetic engineering, a whole. Basically I gave it a list of things I'm interested in writing for my fiction and then like bring me five headlines that I can click through to that will just give me ideas and that's something like, and so every morning I get this really cool message and then I go, just have a look. And it's, it just helps me think about stuff. So how. That's my first task. That's what I did.
- [52:45]
Alicia Ellis
I love that. I'm totally going to steal that. I, I make a point to. Since I'm into near future science fiction, I make a point to read technology magazines and subscribe to them, but then I have to actively go to those sources and read them. I love the idea of having them come to me like that. So I. I've just stolen your idea, Joe.
- [53:03]
Alicia Wright
Yeah, fantastic. Well, I, that's what I wanted to mention it because this is an example of something where it will do some work for you and it helps you, but it's certainly not writing your book. So for people listening, please do steal that idea. That is a ChatGPT task.
- [53:18]
Joanna Penn
Right.
- [53:19]
Alicia Wright
So we are out of time. So where can people find you and your books online?
- [53:23]
Alicia Ellis
As we said at the beginning, I write under the name Alicia Ellis. My website is writeralesha.com and my social media handle across the board, across everywhere is Writer Alisha Writer Alicia. The most social media I use, I use Instagram the most and Blue Sky I'm just getting into. But like I said, I go dark for an extended period of time and then remember that social media exists. But, but writer Alicia.com is the main place you can find me.
- [53:53]
Joanna Penn
Great.
- [53:53]
Alicia Wright
Well, thanks so much for your time, Alicia. That was amazing.
- [53:56]
Alicia Ellis
Thank you, Jo. I really appreciate you. This has been fun.
- [54:03]
Joanna Penn
So I hope you enjoyed the episode today and found it interesting. I think Alicia is so wonderfully straightforward in her explanations, so I hope it helped you if you're still struggling with generative AI. And of course things are going to change even faster this year with the US accelerationist government around AI. And as ever, I'll keep sharing here and in my Patreon about how the changes impact us. Let me know what you think. Please leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes atthecreative pen.com or on their YouTube channel. You can comment on X the Creative Pen or email me joannathecreativepenn.com Send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard. Next week I'm talking about Aristotle for novelists and a strategy for selling more books with Douglas Vigliotti. In the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist episodes in show notes and@thecreativepen.com podcast and you can get your free Author blueprint@thecreativepen.com Blueprint if you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and X at the Creative Pen or on Instagram and Facebook. Fpenauthor Happy writing and I'll see you next time.