Are Your Books Training AI Without Your Permission?

Imagine waking up to discover that your published work — the words you toiled over for months or years — had been quietly used to train a corporate AI system… without your knowledge, consent, or compensation. Sounds outrageous, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, for many of us, it’s already happened.

Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram) has been found to have used books — many pirated from illegal websites like LibGen and Z-Library — to train its large language models. This isn’t just unethical. It’s a clear breach of copyright law.

The Authors Guild in the US is fighting back. They’ve launched a class action lawsuit against Meta and other AI companies (OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic…) on behalf of all authors whose works were scraped and used without permission. If your book was included in Meta’s dataset, you are automatically included in the class action and do not need to take immediate legal action. However, you do have the right to object directly — and many authors already have.

I’ve checked the list, and "The Psychopath" (my second memoir) is on it. So I’ve added my name and sent a formal letter to Meta to assert my copyright and object to the unauthorised use of my work. The Bigamist and my other books are not listed — yet.

You can check if your work has been used with this simple search tool:
🔍 Check here

If your book is listed, you can add your name and send a letter to Meta here:
📨 Send your letter

And if you’re not sure how to check, or if the process feels a bit overwhelming, Ethan, our Membership Manager, is happy to help. He can assist you in searching the database and preparing your objection letter — just reach out.

This matters. Not just for authors today, but for the future of storytelling, creativity, and the value of human-written work. Let’s stand together and make our voices heard.

The Book Whisperers will continue to monitor this situation and keep our members informed. It’s all part of what our community is about — sharing knowledge, standing up for each other, and knowing that none of us are ever alone in this.

Mary Turner Thomson is an international best-selling author, writing coach and publishing consultant. She specialises in helping people tell their stories, and is passionate about not victim shaming – including not victim shaming ourselves. She’s also the author of two true crime memoirs and a novel about resilience.