Robbing and stealing and writing, oh my! – Eamonn Griffin

We love a bit of crime here. And we kinda love criminals, as well as those who might not self-define as such, but who end up doing a bit of crime. It’s amazing what people can justify.

And then there are those whose actions might or might not fall clearly and legally into the bracket of “crime” – let’s leave that for the courts to decide – but which have at the very least the whiff of chicanery, sharp practice, slipperiness, expedience, arrogance, and/or bluster.

Here’s three sets of examples, both of which relate to current (as of April 2025) news stories, and which impact both directly and negatively on the lives and livelihoods of writers.

First, AI. Artificial intelligence. At its most basic, the likes of ChatGPT, Elon Musk’s Grok, Meta’s Llama, and Google’s Gemini – what’s called generative AI – create content through assimilating huge amounts of data from other sources and then making a series of predictive guesses based on a) the data and b) the request, or prompt that’s been made.

This means in turn that generative AI systems need that raw data to begin with. Without it, they’re useless.

Words, images, diagrams, video. It all goes into a digital meat grinder, and lovely AI sausages get pooped out.

As a restaurant needs ingredients, generative AI needs pictures and text.

You might think this represents something of an opportunity for writers and artists. They licence their work – if they’re so minded – and in return for a fee, the Silicon Valley tech bros get to train their electric dancing internet monkey. Fair’s fair, after all. The writer gets paid when an article’s published, when a book’s sold, and even when a paperback is borrowed from a library. There are even some schemes – like AuthorShare – that offer writers a little something on the sale of their secondhand books from some retailers.

But that’s not what happens.

So, how do the likes of Meta (the company that owns Facebook) and OpenAI (one of, if not the largest US-based companies in this sector) get that raw data?

Well, basically, they lift it off the internet without asking.

You may call that “stealing”. I couldn’t possibly comment.

A recent investigation by the US magazine The Atlantic found that Meta had lifted millions of already-pirated texts (and book piracy is another means by which writers get deprived of income) and used them to help train their generative AI. That’s the appropriation of books that have already been nicked…

As you might imagine, this has caused some uproar in the publishing and writing sectors, with protests outside Meta offices, and a campaign headed by, among others, the writer representative body the Society of Authors.  

Example two is related to the first one, in that it concerns Inkitt, a US-based company that wants to weaponise its access to material already being self-published by writers on its app so that AI-generated content can be resold by Inkitt. Again, the work and creativity of writers being appropriated, stuffed into a content-regurgitator, and sold for gain. They’re hoping to automate the production of romance fiction first, apparently. Well, good luck with that. 

But it’s not all generative AI, though this is a serious set of concerns for anyone who’s trying to make something of a living via their capacity to turn words into stories. Example three is that of UK publisher Unbound, which has recently been in the headlines because of the collapse of the company and its rebirth as Boundless.

Unbound was heralded as a gamechanger at its 2011 launch as the UK’s first crowdfunding publisher. The business model was basically Kickstarter or Indiegogo for books, where people pledged money in advance to fund the publication process in return for early access / being part of a project / perks and benefits. Unbound would unlock publication for under-represented writers and subjects, and for niche projects that had a defined audience but which might never make anyone millions.

And, yep, there have been successes and some great books published by Unbound (full disclosure – my 2019 thriller East of England was an Unbound book, though it’s up to you to decide if it’s any good or not).  

However, the business’s collapse was presaged by rising complaints from authors who, to put it simply, hadn’t been paid royalties that were due to them from the sale of their books. That’s not good. Especially for a publisher whose business model minimised risk to the publisher because the books’ publication was being funded through crowdfunding efforts in no small part led by the writer themselves. One estimate has it that over 350 authors are owed money by Unbound, with sums running into the thousands. Another writer’s experiences are here, with their being owed £15,000 and a long-term set of working and reader relationships soured by the experience.

Businesses fail sometimes. I get that. But it can leave a dry, ashy taste in the mouth when the business rises, phoenix-like, from dead embers seemingly to carry on regardless. 

So, these are odd times to be involved with words. AI has been weaponized against creativity, tech companies are thieving already-pirated materials, start-ups are trying to make magic AI novel machines, and publishers aren’t paying their writers.

Yet we persist. I’m lucky in that I don’t rely on a writing income (I have a day job after all, like many authors). And besides, I’ve got something new in print coming out in May. A chapter in a non-fiction anthology of writing about poverty in the UK. The book’s called One In Five. And yes, it’s being published by Unbound under its new guise.

On the upside, it was a job for hire, and I’ve already been paid.

Just as well.

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‘Cash’ by Eamonn Griffin features in One In Five, edited by Louisa Britain, published by Boundless/Unbound on May 15th 2025.

East of England by Eamonn Griffin is now out of print, but there’s second-hand copies to be found online, plus Eamonn’s got a box full of the paperbacks on top of a wardrobe.

Eamonn’s website is https://www.eamonnmartingriffin.co.uk/ and social media-wise, he’s on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/eamonngriffin.bsky.social / @eamonngriffin.bsky.social