Society of Authors

Founded in 1884 with Alfred, Lord Tennyson as its first president, the Society of Authors (SoA) is the UK’s largest trade union for writers, illustrators, and literary translators, with more than 12,000 members. Since 2023 it has made generative AI its central campaign, demanding that AI developers obtain consent, give credit, and pay authors whose work trains their models.

Documenting the damage

In January 2024 the SoA surveyed members on generative AI and published stark findings that April: 26% of illustrators and 36% of translators reported already losing work to AI, and 86% of respondents feared the technology devalues human-made creative work. In May 2024, members passed AI resolutions at an emergency general meeting, and that August the Society wrote directly to Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, Apple, and Meta demanding consent and “appropriate remuneration” before authors’ works are used in AI development.

The fight escalated in April 2025, when the SoA helped organize a protest outside Meta’s London offices after court filings alleged the company trained its Llama models on the LibGen “shadow library” of more than 7.5 million pirated books. Chair Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin called Meta’s actions “illegal, shocking, and utterly devastating for writers,” and the Society petitioned the UK culture secretary to hold Meta to account. It has also lobbied against a proposed UK text-and-data-mining copyright exception that would let AI firms train on protected works by default.