By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Dan Conway, left, CEO of the United Kingdom’s Publishers Association, and The Association of American Publishers’ president and CEO Maria A. Pallante discuss the challenges of AI for the international book publishing industry with Publishing Perspectives on the 2025 London Book Fair. ‘s Main Stage. Image: London Book Fair/Midas
Transatlantic AI Challenges: The Publishers’ Viewpoints
Even as one publishers’ association’s chief discussed the end of a UK government consultation period on artificial intelligence, another association’s chief—in the same packed event on London Book Fair‘s Main Stage—discussed the opening of a public-comment call in Washington.
On Tuesday (March 11), London Book Fair’s opening day, Maria A. Pallante, president and CEO of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), told Publishing Perspectives that the AAP would be filing its response imminently in response to the Trump administration’s call for public input.
And in the same session, Dan Conway, CEO of the United Kingdom’s Publishers Association, told us that there’s no result known as yet from the consultation period, nor a sense for how long an outcome may be in coming—which means, as he said, being “slightly back in uncharted territory.”
Conway was widely praised for his leading commentary to various news media during the last days of the UK consultation, coining the phrase most often repeated in the fray: “The great copyright heist cannot go unchallenged.”
The very serious underpinning of that resonant line is that copyright is not something waited to be negotiated and provided to creative industries and their people: the copyright regime is already in place—actually based in treaties, as Pallante reminds us. Copyright has persisted for some 300 years in England, and, if changed, will be a right that’s being taken away, which is something most politicians know is never appreciated by an electorate.
And yet, “We don’t know where the UK government will go from here,” Conway told the audience, nor can we tell when more will be known.
Dan Conway
The exercise of the seven-weeks-long British consultation period did focus worthy attention on the crisis of AI and copyright, aided by many entertainment celebrities, and the UK market saw what publishers say was a beneficial coming-together of associated creative industries that are dependent on the copyright regime. That’s something that Conway wryly pointed out was “the fault of the government” for “putting out a preferred set of measures that were really difficult for our sector, and in doing so, banding us all together, enabling us to run a campaign against it.”
The Newly Closed US Public Comment Period
Now, on the other side of the Atlantic, the world’s biggest English-language book market is preparing for its turn at bat on the quaking field of government AI policy.
The States’ public-comment period ran for less than three weeks, a much shorter time frame than that of the UK’s consultation period, closing just before midnight on Saturday (March 15). So while with us at London Book Fair, members of the AAP’s leadership—several of whom have recently stepped forward to take supportive roles with the International Publishers Association (IPA)—the finishing touches were being applied to the AAP’s response to Washington’s call for comments.
For the record, AAP’s operation is a notably productive small staff, frequently reminding many observers of the IPA’s capacity to deliver large amounts of action from a very small office team in Geneva.
One of the points that the AAP’s Pallante makes most clearly is that a threat to a copyright regime doesn’t only imperil a rights holder’s compensation for protected work—it also is about the right of a creator to control that content.
In speaking in London, she pointed out that prior to becoming the chief of the publishers association in 2017, which is based in Washington—”It’s been very interesting in that neighborhood lately”—she spent five-and-a-half years running the US Copyright Office.
An attorney and law professor, she turned in London to the “opt-out” issue that stands as a major problem in the UK government’s proposal—and is mentioned in the AAP’s filing made over the weekend in the States. The AAP also filed comments with the UK’s government consultation and worked with the IPA on making its filing, as well.
“We do that really strategically,” she said about such cross-border filings being coordinated by these publishers’ associations. “It’s very important, because the tech sector is global, and their positions are everywhere. One of the things they like to say is that licensing content legally ‘is so hard that we couldn’t possibly do it’ in order to make their use of copyrighted content legally correct. ‘It’s it’s too tricky,’ they say, ‘it’s too complicated.’
“And yes,” Pallante said, “this is the tech sector that creates driverless cars and other things and sends rockets privately to Mars, but says they can’t license, even though you all have digital catalogs and you know how to license rights. I think the governments bought that initially, and then they realized how silly it was, it sounded ridiculous.
“But the other thing they say—and this is more concerning—is that we’re in an ‘AI arms race.’
“We saw this with the UK government. We definitely saw it with the Paris AI Summit about three weeks ago. And that is where the White House consultation starts.”
Forewarning of ‘an Unworkable Opt-Out Regime’
You can read here the short February 25 call for public comment from Washington’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.
The American “AI Action Plan” is not as detailed and structured an approach as the British proposal is. Instead, the US plan—described in the current administration’s fondness for comparative bravura—”will define priority policy actions to enhance America’s position as an AI powerhouse and prevent unnecessarily burdensome requirements from hindering private sector innovation. With the right governmental policies, continued US artificial intelligence leadership will promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.”
Another part of the invitation-to-comment quotes the principal deputy director of the Science and Technology Policy Office, Lynne Parker, saying, “The Trump administration is committed to ensuring [that] the United States is the undeniable leader in AI technology. This AI Action Plan is the first step in securing and advancing American AI dominance, and we look forward to incorporating the public’s comments and innovative ideas.”
The AAP’s nine-page response, filed Saturday, is available to read in full here (PDF).
You’ll notice that, especially in such early stages when an actual “action plan” has not been put forward, there’s a lot of emphasis put on how much benefit can come from artificial intelligence in a framework of appropriately devised policy. Nevertheless, the AAP position paper makes a series of directly pointed statements. Even in the mild tones of an initial commentary exercise, these elements stand out as lines drawn in the sand.
We quote them here, and call your attention to the second point in particular, the concept of “prioritizing intellectual property and AI together”:
- “The US AI Action Plan should prioritize the protection of America’s greatest asset: intellectual property.
- “The United States can provide singular AI leadership by prioritizing intellectual property and AI together.
- “Generative AI owes its success to the investments of publishers and authors: copyright litigation has been necessary to protect broad American interests and ideals globally, but the White House has an opportunity to promote partnerships between American companies.
- “A vibrant licensing market continues to evolve between publishers and AI developers, and the White House should embrace and encourage it.
- “The White House must reject Big Tech’s calls for sweeping exceptions to copyright, including a bloated fair-use defense and an unworkable ‘opt-out’ regime, which would dismantle centuries of copyright law and destroy evolving licensing markets and future IP investment.
- “Pirate sites are a criminal scourge on IP investments of the United States; the White House should denounce AI developers who source their training materials from pirate sites and nullify incentives or benefits it might otherwise offer to AI developers.
- “Transparency as to training materials is essential to fair and safe AI policy, and the White House should work with Congress to prioritize U.S. needs and harmonize transparency requirements worldwide.”
Maria A. Pallante
In a concluding comment on the AAP’s response to the call for comment, Pallante writes, “The United States is an unmatched leader in both technology and intellectual property, both of which are key to global AI markets.
“We thank the White House for the opportunity to inform its action plan and look forward to working with all parts of the administration to ensure that authors, publishers, and all creative sectors are protected and positioned to partner with AI developers to achieve the extraordinary benefits of AI for the long term, in safe and lawful fashion.
“Among our priorities is stopping the proliferation of pirate sites that are a scourge on American IP investments and an illegal source of AI development.”
More from Publishing Perspectives on artificial intelligence and world publishing is here, more on copyright is here, more on the freedom to publish is here, more on the Association of American Publishers is here, more on the UK’s Publishers Association is here, more on London Book Fair is here, and more on the International Publishers Association’s work is here.
Publishing Perspectives is the International Publishers Association’s world media partner.
About the Author
