The third richest guy on Earth probably just stole my book

It looks like Mark Zuckerberg stole my books.

According to a recent report from The Atlantic — ‘The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem’ by Alex Reisner — about 7.5 million books have been stolen by Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, owned by Mark Zuckerberg.

Here is a link to the Forbes article by Dan Pontefract which also goes over the broad strokes: ‘Authors Challenge Meta’s Use Of Their Books For Training AI.’

In short, Meta used a known book pirating book website known as LibGen in order to download millions of books. The text from those books can then be plugged into Meta’s A.I. — known as Llama — so that it can be studied and used to generate text as specified by a user.

Here is why I take issue with this.

I have worked for a newspaper before. Multiple newspapers, in fact. I wrote articles, shot video, recorded audio, took pictures, all that jazz. When I did, I was on the clock and I was being paid. As a result, the newspapers I worked for could reprint my articles, reuse my photos, or repost the video I shot for them. I don’t see another dime of that if it does get reused.

The newspapers already paid me. They did not pay me well, but they paid me at a rate I agreed to for doing work I agreed to.

Meta, however, hasn’t paid me. A spokesperson has not asked for my permission. No one has attempted to negotiation. The “work” has not been specified.

If Reisner’s reporting is correct, they wouldn’t have bought a single copy of either of my books or anyone else’s before feeding it into a machine.

Purely hypothetically, that machine may use my cadence or sentence structure to produce a book that is shockingly close to (but legally distinct from) my own book. It might ghostwrite Mark Zuckerberg’s next New York Times Bestselling biography. It might be used by a bigot to write a political speech that argues for segregation or death camps or anything whatsoever.

Here’s a post on LinkedIn where a fellow said he used Llama to write a book. (Take it with a grain of salt. I don’t know Mr. LinkedIn here and I don’t know for a fact he used Llama specifically, beyond him saying so. Additionally, I’m pretty sure he’s not sanctioning a multi-billion dollar company to “write his book” and steal from working authors.)

I do not consent to this. I have not been paid for this. I am morally opposed to this. If every living person on Earth is okay with Mark Zuckerberg doing this, then I am dead.

Based on reporting from Reisner, my latest book, The Wilderlands, likely wouldn’t have been among those stolen. (As it would have been uploaded months after Meta likely pulled information from the site.) Similarly, it is not known whether Meta would have used every book available in LibGen’s collection. (Though, if you’re trying to train a machine to write, I don’t know why you wouldn’t feed it everything you can — especially if you’re not going to allow something like paying authors to stop you.)

Now, I don’t know what you think Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth is but if he gave $10,000 to the author/s of each of the 7.5 million people he possibly stole from, I’d have $20,000 (which, for the record, would not be enough) and he’d still have more than half his net worth.

I’d like people to read my book. I’d love for people to buy my book, but I’d also be elated if you found it at a used book store or a library for cheap or free. If you have the money to buy a book, don’t pirate books. If you can get the book from your library, don’t pirate books. If you can even e-mail the author and ask them to send you a copy, don’t pirate books.

If you are the third wealthiest man on the planet, DO NOT PIRATE BOOKS!!!!

If you want to check and see if you or someone you know might have been burglarized as well, here is a link to a tool The Atlantic put together to see what books are/were in the LibGen system: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/search-libgen-data-set/682094/

If you want to write down three of your favorite authors, I all but promise you, two of them are on that list. Again, I’m on this list, it didn’t impact only the big authors. It’s nearly everyone.

So what do I do about it?

I don’t know yet. Delete Facebook and Instagram? That feels like the place to start. There is a Journalism School adage you’ve probably heard by now in our digital age: If you’re getting something for free, the product is you.

I know Meta uses my information, likely even beyond the degree that I know about it. I’ve accepted that it’s something I tacitly agree to to a certain capacity when using its platform to write about my day, comment on a friend’s photo, or take a picture. I don’t love it, but I know it’s the cost.

This, however, is several bridges too far.

If a company is stealing from me, why on Earth would I continue to give that company my time and money?

Unfortunately, there are answers to this. I won’t get deep into them at the moment, but you can probably rely on my social media sticking around for the immediate future.

Outside of that, it’s likely just a matter of waiting to see how many of these books were likely used and seeing what legal action can be taken once things become more apparent. The Author’s Guild has a helpful article running through what authors can do. That article mentions at least one class action lawsuit with the claim being made on behalf of all U.S. authors.

I’ll close things out for now by saying if you use an LMM (Large Multimodal Model) A.I. to mess around and generate ideas, I’m not mad at that. (Especially if it’s trained on public domain work or your own work). I maybe have a problem if and when you’re monetizing something largely created by a program. I certainly have a problem if you’re monetizing that product and it’s been trained using other authors’ works.

I am legitimately angry when the third richest guy on the planet decides it’s faster and more convenient to steal 7.5 million books in the name of industry rather than give a single red cent to an actual writer.

Until next time, look up the address of your local library and support real authors. (On an unrelated note, I hear interesting things about the book Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams. Could be worth a request from the library if you end up swinging by.)

*****

The Wilderlands is available for physical purchase now from Barnes & Noble and Amazon. The Wilderlands ebook is available on Kindle, on Nook, on Kobo, and on Apple.

Light Keeper Chronicle: The Unspoken Prophecy is available for physical purchase from Schuler Books, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. The Unspoken Prophecy ebook is available on Kindle, on Nook, on Kobo, and on Apple.