Isobel_starling

I was quoted at the end of this article without a source, so I'd like to confirm that, yes, I did submit my request to Findaway Voices to have my titles removed from Apple's machine learning program. They responded to say the request had been sent to Apple. However, I never recieved any responses to any questions about the uses my IP was put to, or if my audiobooks were ever used to train their AI voice app. Six months later the errant clause is still in the contract and both authors and narrators have no proof that our audiobooks were removed from this program. 

As an author I commission a narrator to perform my books. I own the copyright of the book and the narration. I do not have any rights to the narrators voice, therefore, I cannot give permission for his voice to be assigned for any third-party use. What we've seen from Apple is a predatory rights grab, racing to gather as much content for training as they can before a legal framework is decided internationally for LLM. Apple are now trialing their AI audiobook app via Draft2Digital- and again authors are being used to further the evolution of their training data by having their manuscripts harvested for machine learning after signing up to 'trial' the Apple AI app.

As for those in this forum who said 'you should have read the contract'. When uploading an audiobook for distribution via Findaway Voices we are asked to click on a box to say we agree to the contract contents. The contract contents can be changed at any time- say, they're no longer working with a particular distribution site, or they've got a new distribution partner. We're not informed or asked to re-sign the updated contract. This is how Findaway Voices and Apple slid this nefarious clause onto page 18 of the contract.