Authors have expressed their shock after the 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 agreement with Microsoft was included in a trading update by the publisher’s parent company in May this year. However, academics published by the group claim they have not been told about the AI deal, were not given the opportunity to opt out and are receiving no extra payment for the use of their research by the tech company.

The Society of Authors said it is “concerned to see publishers signing deals with tech companies without consulting authors and creators first”.

Dr Ruth Alison Clemens, a lecturer in modern English literature whose work has been published by Taylor & Francis and Routledge, claimed authors hadn’t been contacted about the AI deal.

Clemens told The Bookseller : “I only found out about this via word of mouth in the past few days. I was shocked that they had not publicised this more widely to their authors, as the use of AI and LLMs is a prominent concern for academic researchers today.”

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https://www.thebookseller.com/news/academic-authors-shocked-after-taylor—francis-sells-access-to-their-research-to-microsoft-ai