‘No Books, No AI’: 158 South Korean organisations are calling on AI firms to disclose the books used to train their models

Launched by the Korean Publishers Society, the appeal is directed at the government, the National Assembly and AI research laboratories. The backdrop to this is the purchase of Korean books by Anthropic.

The Korean Publishers Society has launched a nationwide campaign in South Korea called "No Books, No AI." As of October 16, 158 organizations and 321 individuals have signed the campaign, including novelists Kim Nam-il and Kim Yi-jeong, poets Na Hee-duk and Ryu Keun, and translator Hong Han-byeol.

The signatories demand that AI companies publish the list of works used for training, with their origin and the legal basis invoked, that rights holders be able to verify this use, and that small publishers and independent authors obtain fair negotiation conditions. They also call on the government and the National Assembly to protect creators while the industry develops.

Anthropic at the heart of the debates

The text is based on the case of Anthropic, which is said to have bought between 250,000 and 300,000 Korean books via the distributor Woongjin Booxen, and whose American lawsuit has uncovered the download of about 4 million pirated books. The $1.5 billion agreement validated in July covers about 482,000 works, at nearly $3,000 each; only 21 Korean works translated into English are eligible. The initiative echoes the Frankfurt Declaration published on October 6 by German publishers.