Major trade publisher Penguin Random House is placing language on the copyright pages of its books whereby it asserts that its books must not be used for training AI.

As The Bookseller reports, new releases and reprints of titles published by this publisher will include the addendum: "No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.".

While use of copyrighted material to train AI models has been a contested issue in many lawsuits, Penguin Random House is the only major publisher to date to update its copyright pages to take account of these new anxieties.

This decision does not mean Penguin Random House is totally opposed to the use of artificial intelligence in book publishing, though. In August, it released its first step toward generative AI, saying it will "vigorously defend the intellectual property that belongs to our authors and artists," even as promising to "use generative AI tools selectively and responsibly, where we see a clear case that they can advance our goals.".