Memo to Microsoft – I’ve got some backlist titles and a struggling school where kids cannot imagine what £20 looks like, let alone £2,000, if you’d like to get in touch!

The Guardian Media Group has just announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI, a move which has got surprisingly little coverage in the book publishing media.

That will be partly because Big Media deals with AI are routine nowadays, but also because the Guardian has for so long been a comfort zone for the Luddite Fringe to rant about perceived AI injustices.

Guardian Clickbait Headlines

This was the Guardian headline in January of this year:

“British novelists criticise government over AI ‘theft’.“

Less than two weeks ago the Guardian ranted:

“‘Mass theft’: Thousands of artists call for AI art auction to be cancelled.“

Not that there’s anything new here. Back in the summer of ’23, when ChatGPT was still in Pampers, the Guardian was already stoking the Luddite Fringe fire:

“Authors call for AI companies to stop using their work without consent.“

And in November ’24 the Guardian was scaring the shit out of authors with its clickbait headline “Writers condemn startup’s plans to publish 8,000 books next year using AI.”

Also last November, when HarperCollins signed a deal with the AI devil, the Guardian delighted in highlighting a BlueSky post from author Daniel Kibblesmith rejecting an offer from HarperCollins to offer one of his titles to an AI company.

Your Backlist Titles Are Worth $5,000 Each

The November 2024 incident was noteworthy because Kibblesmith posted the message from his agent, and we learned that the author was being offered $2,500 for three year non-exclusive training licence for a children’s book published almost ten years ago (2017).

We know from elsewhere that it was Microsoft offering $5,000 per book to HarperCollins, and HC offering half to the author. Decoder reported another author offered the same deal for a 2018 title.

In other words, Microsoft was offering serious money for backlist titles.

Serious money? Well, if we are to believe the Guardian, authors earn next to nothing, which of course is BS that totally ignores the reason why big name authors can so casually and self-righteously dismiss AI deal offers. Because they earn much more as they are. Successful author backlists are just front-lists with an older date in the frontmatter. Only $2,500? I wouldn’t switch the laptop on for that.

Kibblesmith dismissed the HarperCollins offer as “abominable“, and that’s his right, but how many regular authors are earning anything at all from their 8-10 year old backlists, let alone $2,500?

That’s around £2,000 GBP. Per The Guardian, the median annual income is just £7,000 for UK authors, which is why I say £2000/$2,500 on the table for a non-exclusive training licence that will expire in three years is “serious money”.

Memo To Microsoft

Memo to Microsoft – I’ve got some backlist titles and a struggling school where kids cannot imagine what £20 looks like, let alone £2,000, if you’d like to get in touch!

But back to the Guardian, where clearly owners and editors live in parallel dimensions.

When Is News Not News? When Its A Guardian Press Release

Keep in mind the above-referenced clickbait headlines and then consider how the Guardian covered its own deal with OpenAI:

“Guardian Media Group announces strategic partnership with OpenAI” ran the Guardian headline. Except it wasn’t actually a headline at all. It was a verbatim press release tucked away on the Guardian Media News Press office page.

“Under the partnership, Guardian reporting and archive journalism will be available as a news source within ChatGPT, alongside the publication of attributed short summaries and article extracts. In addition, the Guardian will also roll out ChatGPT Enterprise to develop new products, features and tools.”

The PR explains that the Guardian is exploring “agreements with both existing and emerging businesses to ensure fair compensation and attribution for its journalism.”

Historical Grievances – AI Companies Are Ready And Willing To Pay

In other words, it’s open to more deals with more AI companies, and that’s fine by me! Bring it on! The TNPS position is clear: There are a number of legitimate ethical and legal issues needing to be settled, but these are essentially historical grievances that will be addressed by the courts. AI companies are ready and willing to pay.

Keep in mind the only reason the New York Times is suing OpenAI is because negotiations between the two stalled when the NYT demanded too much money. There’s a long list of publishers that are dealing with AI companies, and many millions of dollars are changing hands, even as others jump on the litigation bandwagon in the hope of getting a better deal on the table.

Juggling What Readers Want To Hear And Commercial Interests

I just find the Guardian‘s juggling act incredible, in mind all those AI-is-the-devil’s-spawn headlines mentioned above (just a few of many).

A reminder that “British novelists criticise government over AI ‘theft’ and “‘Mass theft’: Thousands of artists call for AI art auction to be cancelled” were the Guardian‘s idea of objective and “incisive” reporting as recently as 14 January and 11 February.

And we need only to go back eight weeks, to 19 December 2024 to find this headline: “UK arts and media reject plan to let AI firms use copyrighted material.”

“The Creative Rights in AI Coalition (Crac) said existing copyright laws must be respected and enforced rather than degraded,” explained the Guardian solemnly, adding (my bold), “The coalition includes the British Phonographic Industry, the Independent Society of Musicians, the Motion Picture Association and the Society of Authors as well as Mumsnet, the Guardian, Financial Times, Telegraph, Getty Images, the Daily Mail Group and Newsquest.”

To be clear, in the space of eight week the Guardian ran at least three hostile-to-AI headlines, the most recent being on 11 February just THREE DAYS before it announced its deal with OpenAI. To which we can add an opinion piece published on February 12, TWO DAYS before the announcement, titled “Elon Musk owning OpenAI would be a terrible idea. That doesn’t mean it won’t happen.“

You couldn’t make it up.

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