The Publishing Performance Show

Dan Miller - Why AI Content Can't Be Copyrighted (And What Authors Need to Know)

• Teddy Smith • Episode 111

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Dan Miller is the founder of The Copy Detectives, a specialized service that helps authors navigate copyright permissions and AI content disclosure requirements. With extensive experience in copyright law and clearance processes, Dan assists authors in understanding when they need permission to use quotes, images, and other content in their books. His expertise has become increasingly important as AI-generated content creates new challenges for copyright registration and protection. Dan works with authors to assess manuscripts for copyright issues, secure necessary permissions, and ensure compliance with both U.S. Copyright Office and Amazon KDP disclosure requirements for AI-generated content.

In this episode:

  • How AI content affects copyright ownership and registration
  • The new requirement for copyright certificates before filing lawsuits
  • Why authors need to register copyrights within 90 days of publication
  • The difference between copyrightable and non-copyrightable AI content
  • Amazon KDP's AI disclosure requirements and potential consequences
  • When quotes require permission versus fair use considerations
  • The five different U.S. copyright laws currently in effect
  • Public domain content and Creative Commons licensing
  • Why song lyrics and poetry quotes are particularly expensive
  • The importance of keeping detailed records of all source materials
  • International copyright considerations under the Berne Convention
  • How to work with copyright clearance services


Resources mentioned:


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[00:00:00] Teddy Smith: Welcome to the Publishing Performance Show, the podcast that helps self-publish authors turn their passion into a profit. Now, I'm your host Teddy Smith, and if you're serious about building a sustainable business, then you're in the right place. Every week I sit down with successful authors, industry experts, and publishing professionals who share their exact strategies they use right now to how they grown their business, grow their readership, increase their book sales, and essentially to make a bit more money.

[00:00:29] Now, whether you're just starting out or you're looking to scale your existing publishing business, you'll walk away from every episode with actual insights you can implement immediately. Now, if you are new here, it would really, really help me out. If you could subscribe either on Apple or Spotify or YouTube or wherever you are, just simply hit the subscribe button.

[00:00:45] It really helps to show to get more reach, which means we can get better guests for you and we can help you out in in more ways. Alright, let's dive into this episode. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Publishing Performance Show. Today I'm really happy to be joined by Dan Miller, who is the founder of the Copy Detective.

[00:01:00] So thank you for joining us, Dan. 

[00:01:02] Dan Miller: Thank you. Thanks for having me. 

[00:01:04] Teddy Smith: No problem. So the main question I get asked a lot is if I use any ai, AI to write my book, who actually owns the content?

[00:01:15] Dan Miller: Well, if you're talking about from a, uh, a copyright perspective, and that's how I approach it since we're the copyright detectives, it depends on how you generate the content, how the AI content is actually generated. So if you start by simply putting in prompts into an AI platform, the output of that.

[00:01:35] According to, uh, US copyright office and the courts, that is not copyrightable. That means it's unclaimable so no one can actually claim that content if AI generates it. Just using prompts. Now, if you start from the other extreme where you write the content yourself and then you use AI to tweak it or, to develop characters or whatever it is for, for the book that you're using.

[00:01:59] Depending on the level of AI involvement, it could be totally copyrightable or it may not. So in the US the, uh, if you're filing a copyright application, the examiner will actually decide on a case by case basis. the phrase they use is a di minimis amount of AI involvement or AI output.

[00:02:19] And, uh, there's kind of a, a test for that. If, if the content that AI generates, if it were created by a human. If it would be copyrightable, then that's not di minimis. So you know, you have to disclose that when you file a, an application for copyright registration, and then the copyright office will disallow that piece.

[00:02:41] Now the rest of your book is copyrightable. So that's, that's really no different in the US than the way it's always been. So if I used a public domain image or something else and in a book and I filed a copyright application, I'd have to disclose that as well. So it's, uh, so AI has become kind of the fifth element, if you will mm-hmm.

[00:03:02] On what has to be disclosed to the US copyright office. 

[00:03:05] Teddy Smith: Right. Okay. What does, what does copyrightable actually mean? Because I know a lot of authors think that a book is automatically copywriters just by the fact they've written it. So what does that actually mean when you say something is copyright?

[00:03:17] Dan Miller: Okay. The, the way it reads in the US is the moment that you capture the content in a tangible form. In other words, you, you write a, a word don or something else, you create it, uh, it's copyrighted in the us. The problem is though, that beginning in, in, uh, 2023. You now have to have a certificate of registration from the US Copyright Office for that work before you can file a lawsuit.

[00:03:49] So that's a major change just in the last couple of years. Oh, right. Uh, we have a thing called a small claims court now that you can actually do it simultaneously, but here in the US the best practice is to file an application for copyright registration within 90 days. After publishing it, and then you could get statutory damages.

[00:04:09] So in the, in the case of ai, you know, obviously it, it was with full intent when they scraped people's works and everything else and make a copy of it, it could be up to $150,000 per claim, if you will, for each copyright infringement for that. So, you know, some serious teeth in that if you file within 90 days.

[00:04:29] So you have to, the author has to take the effort. To register it and get that certificate back to, to, uh, to actually exercise the rights, if you will. 

[00:04:39] Teddy Smith: Right. Okay. So, although when you write something, it is actually already copyrighted. If you ever wanted to take someone or you wanted to protect that writing, you would actually need to register with the right authorities in America at least.

[00:04:52] Dan Miller: Yes, yes. To be able to exercise that. Right. So, you know, you have the inherent right to make copies, for example. Uh, that means AI can't make copies of your work. if you, they do, it's copyright infringement and that's what's happening with AI right now. And in the US there are currently 40 court cases that are open with people suing AI platforms for copyright infringement.

[00:05:15] And the one just came out a couple of days ago. I had to revise a, a PowerPoint presentation I was about to make in a couple hours. Disney and Universal Studios sued Midjourney and uh, there are 199. Instances of copyright infringement in the lawsuit against Midjourney. So that's the biggest one. It's the first time a studio has actually, uh, sued an AI platform for copyright infringement.

[00:05:41] So that's, that's a historic first for that. Right. And you know, of course, Disney and Midjourney have deep pockets, so they'll be in lawsuits for a long time. 

[00:05:49] Teddy Smith: Yeah. If you are writing the stuff yourself, what is the first step? What are the first steps you need to take? Um, like in order to protect yourself?

[00:05:58] Is it just a case of registering or is there a specific process you should be following? I. 

[00:06:04] Dan Miller: Well, part of the problem in, in writing and, you know, we've done a couple of of books that have taken years and there's so many iterations of what's going on. So the, the key I think right now is for a writer to keep track of how they've used ai.

[00:06:21] So I encourage people to come up with some kind of tracking log, if you will. And, and I do that when I'm, uh, seeking permission for clients. That's, that's our main job is to go after copyright permissions. And, uh, so yeah, I encourage people to keep records. Uh, ai, some of the AI platforms like to keep a library for you of every prompt that you've done so you can go back and find it.

[00:06:44] But, in my mind, as you're developing your manuscript. If you, uh, if you use ai, make a decision right then, whether or not it's di minimis. If it's a small amount, like, uh, Grammarly checking the grammar or developing characters for a novel or whatever, make a decision then that you, you know, this is a, a small amount.

[00:07:07] You don't have to declare it. So, so that's how I would do it, is I'd just keep a record. You know, keep those files forever, if you will. Uh, because it's not only the US copyright office that requires disclosure. Now, uh, Amazon KDP requires disclosure of AI generated content, and, uh, if you don't disclose it and they find out later, they can pull your book from the bookshelves.

[00:07:31] So you won't have a distribution mechanism. So it's, it's serious and, and, uh, a lot of traditional publishers now are following, uh, that same, same, uh, principle, if you will, of disclosing the AI generated content. But some of them are actually going to a, uh, where you have to declare the AI assisted content as well.

[00:07:51] So keep records is what I would say. Yeah. As you're developing your stuff, because it's too easy to forget, you know, a week later you forgot where you got it. And that's, that's true if you're making, if you're quoting, uh, other content as well, is to keep track of where you got it. 'cause a lot of authors will come to me and they don't remember where they got the content.

[00:08:09] So that's the first thing I have to do is, you know, where, where was this published and was it registered? Is it under copyright protection or not? 

[00:08:15] Teddy Smith: Yeah, I've seen Amazon have, about a year ago they introduced that thing where you have to select, like whether you used ai, like what tools you used and to what extent you used it.

[00:08:24] Have you seen anyone on Amazon so far get in trouble for not declaring something in the correct way? 

[00:08:29] Dan Miller: No, I, I haven't, I haven't been trying to follow that, but, uh, you know, the fact that it's, you know, it's part of their, uh, part of their agreement that you sign when you go that you will do that. So, yeah, it, it's on an honor system.

[00:08:42] The problem is, you know, if you don't honor the honor system, you know it can't have serious consequences for you. 

[00:08:49] Teddy Smith: Yeah. I do wonder if that's gonna change on Amazon at some point where they're gonna be a bit, they're gonna clamp down on it because at the moment they sort of seem to just ask the question and then just leave it hanging out there.

[00:08:58] They don't ever seem to do anything about it. Like I could just lie and upload a book that was entirely written with AI and no one would notice. Um, but I feel like that will change. 

[00:09:07] Dan Miller: Well, the, the whole thing about AI detection, that's what's going to get better Now, I, I've, uh, played around with that and, uh, I was not impressed with my first attempt.

[00:09:17] So we, we put in something that my wife had written before, Chad, GPT even came on the scene. So we know it's a hundred percent human written. And the result was that, um. The, uh, the response was there's a 52% that this was written either by AI or by a human being. So I can't figure out what the other 48% was.

[00:09:39] Where did that 

[00:09:40] Teddy Smith: come from? They ba they basically just said it could be or it could not be. 

[00:09:45] Dan Miller: Yeah. But it's getting better. So I think AI detection, once those platforms, uh, you know, are a lot more reliable, then Amazon could use that. Now, Amazon could also disclose that something. Has AI generated content.

[00:09:58] They're not doing that, you know, when people declare it. But that's something that Amazon could do. Uh, you know, the marketplace may be where it settles out though, because a lot of the stuff is generated by ai, uh, you know, is not particularly creative, uh, you know, compelling or anything else. Uh, but again, AI's getting better also.

[00:10:19] So it's a double-edged sword, if you will. 

[00:10:22] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Now with your practice, obviously you do a lot of work around copyright. It's not just about ai, it's, it's all sorts of different types of copyrights. So what are the different things that you are working on that, that, that sort of help authors especially.

[00:10:36] Dan Miller: Well, uh, first thing we do is try to make a determination whether or not there's a, uh, a copywriting issue. Whether if someone uses a direct quote, for example, is that work actually under copyright or not? And in the US there's five different copyright laws that are in effect right now. So I, that's the first thing I have to do is figure out, uh, is this item still under copyright?

[00:10:57] If it is and you quote it, then you need permission. Now there's a, there's a concept that, that we have here. We call it fair use, you call it fair dealing. And that's a, that's a big issue and I still get questions. Weekly, you know, I did X, Y, Z. That's gotta be fair use, wrong, you know, there's no, uh, set, set number of words that you can use without having to get permission, uh, or anything else.

[00:11:21] So the AI platforms that have scraped everything that exists out there, you know, they're going to be using fair use as a defense. And, uh, so that's part of what I'm watching these, uh, 40 new court cases that are out there. Each time I do a presentation, I update that. So far, there's only been one decision made against an AI platform, and that was, uh, Reuters sued Ross.

[00:11:46] Ross actually was trying to come up with a competitive news service, so they scraped everything that Reuters had and, uh, which didn't make, doesn't make sense, you know, basically they were trying to pirate everything that, uh, Reuters had already done and sell that service, so they lost. Uh, so Reuters actually bankrupted the AI platform before it ever, uh, decision was finally made.

[00:12:09] But, uh, the, you know, the courts are gonna decide in the US what is fair use and what is not fair use. And the US copyright officer's position is that some of 'em will be determined, fair use, and some will not. Well, that's, you know, a 50 50 chance too. Um, so it'll all have to write and it'll take years for this to play out in the us.

[00:12:29] Yeah. 

[00:12:30] Teddy Smith: You, you talked about some of the things that authors need to look out for there, such as using quotes and making sure that they're, uh, using the right citations and things like that. So can, can we talk about some of the basics of copywriting? That copyright, sorry, not copywriting, uh, of copyright laws, um, that people need to be aware of, especially if you are a new author.

[00:12:50] Dan Miller: Okay. Um. Well, the first thing is, is making a decision on whether to do a direct quote. And, uh, so I frequently, I try to talk authors out of using so many direct quotes. First of all, it, it becomes cumbersome to read a, a document, if you will, if you just have direct quote after direct quote. And the authors typically do that to try to, uh.

[00:13:17] Elevate the work, if you will, to show, show more scholarship. That's fine in a scholarly work if you're a student or you know, whatever. But, it, it, uh, it interferes with the readability to me, when you have so many quotes that just mess up the flow of everything. So make it, you know, make a decision. Is the, is the expense of getting permission to use a quote, uh, equal to or greater than you know, the cost.

[00:13:44] So, you know, can you justify, because we charge per source to get permission out there. So do, 

[00:13:50] Teddy Smith: do you 

[00:13:50] Dan Miller: need permission for all the quotes you use? if the, if the source is under copyright protection now if the quote is in the public domain, then you can use that freely. You need to give attribution of course, but you still need to, you know, you need to always do that.

[00:14:09] So 

[00:14:10] Teddy Smith: what, what do you mean by that? So do you mean a quote? Say if someone says something on TV and you hear it, then I guess that's in public domain, but if you take it straight from a book No, 

[00:14:18] Dan Miller: no. So it's a, a matter of when it was published. So in the United States right now, it's a moving target because of the way the, the laws have changed.

[00:14:28] Yeah. But anything in the US before 1929 is in the public domain. 

[00:14:34] Teddy Smith: Oh, so you're talking about the the as in the public domain laws as the general public domain laws, not just something that's in the public domain. 

[00:14:42] Dan Miller: Right. But just because it's public. Uh, yeah. Now what, for example, when you air this, uh, podcast that's out there is you'll own the recording, at least in the us This is the way it works.

[00:14:54] You own the recording for that? Yeah. And you own the words that you're saying. I actually own the words that I'm saying unless we, unless I signed a release. Yeah. And with some podcasts, they are asking you to actually sign a, uh, a work made for hire release, which I won't do. so the fact that you broadcast it does not give anyone the right to take your podcast and reproduce it unless you grant that.

[00:15:23] So that's, that's the issue. So. Uh, 

[00:15:26] Teddy Smith: I did a podcast a couple of months ago about reproducing public domain books, you know, things like Charles Dickens and stuff like that. Sure, sure. It's really old. Yeah. So that I, I didn't realize that we're talking about the same issue here. Yes. Um, but let me give you an example, right.

[00:15:39] Say you're doing a book about, um. The American P and you wanted to quote something from someone recent like Bill Clinton or Barack Obama or something like that. Like when you're using a quote in that context, say they've taken it from their book or something, are you saying you'd need to get permission from the book to use it, or can you just cite it?

[00:15:59] Dan Miller: Well, the, so in the US if it's a, if it is a work that's produced by a government official. A federal, not a state, a federal government official, like the president of the United States or Senator, if it's in their official role, that actually is in the public domain according to our laws. Okay. That's a bad example.

[00:16:20] You can quote Bill Clinton all day long now, you know, you couldn't, again, it has to be a government official who has produced that as part of their official role. Yeah. If Bill Clinton writes a book. However, now you can't go quote his book. Without permission for that. Right. Because it's a different role.

[00:16:44] So it's role specific and that, that's an exception to the, the copyright law is government affairs. So government documents and all of those kind of things are in the public domain is one, is one thing. And creative Commons is, I don't know if you use Creative Commons much, but a lot of people, uh, do use that.

[00:17:03] That's a different thing. 'cause it's actually a licensing. Mechanism, if you will, where the author, uh, puts it into the, uh, creative common system with a particular license, and you can use that as long as you adhere to the whatever the license says. Some of it's is not commercial, so you can't use it in a book, for example, if it says non-commercial.

[00:17:27] 'cause, you know, producing a book and publishing and selling it is a commercial enterprise. 

[00:17:31] Teddy Smith: Yeah. What, what about, in another example, say you were writing a book about, um, uh, about writing skills and you wanted to include some quotes from books, recent books that you admired. Um. In that scenario, do you'd need to ask permission for every single quote you want to use, or are you able to put like links and ci, like a p, a citations and things like that?

[00:17:55] Dan Miller: If you're doing a direct quote, yep. Technically you need permission. Now the author has to decide how much risk they're willing to take, and that's part of what I advise them. Now, what I encourage people to do is paraphrase it, don't do a direct quote. In other words, put it in your own words. And the best advice that I've had about doing that is, is read what you're wanting to use.

[00:18:19] Go make a cup of tea, sit down and enjoy it, and then come back and write what you remember. 

[00:18:25] Teddy Smith: Okay? 

[00:18:26] Dan Miller: So, you know, that's, that's a, a practical tip on what to do. So rather than doing the direct quote, because in the US there's no amount of words. That's fair use. And in the US. A judge is going to decide whether it's fair or not when you're sued for copyright infringement.

[00:18:45] So that's the only way you're gonna know whether it was fair or not. Fair use is when a judge decides, and, uh, the odds are not great that you know, unless you're doing news reporting or you're writing a criticism or you're a student, you know, uh, fair use gets very, very sketchy. It's a risk, and the more you quote.

[00:19:06] The greater the risk. If you were to quote, let's say there's a, a 10 line poem and you, you know, you put that whole poem in your book, well, you've done a hundred percent of the other work. Yeah. So now you have infringed that entire thing if you use. Two lines of a song lyric in there. You know, a song, song lyrics are not very long either.

[00:19:25] You know, you have, uh, captured a greater percentage of that. And, and song lyrics are another thing that I do copyright clearance on. Uh, particularly, uh, in the us uh, baby boomers like myself, we like to write memoirs and we like to include the lyrics from the songs that were popular when we were in high school.

[00:19:43] So, you know, and uh, so I get that question often. The problem is, you know, the, uh, the Beatles do not need the publicity from the two lines of songs that you have in your book. They'd rather get paid. And we've actually had that occur specifically, you know, two lines from a Beatles song cost an author $500, and that was, that was about 15 years ago.

[00:20:06] So I hate to think what the cost would be now. Um. Audio books. I, I'm working on one now. I just started one. Now, a lot of people in an audio book, they wanna include, uh, songs, recordings, and that's a different set of permissions that we have to go through to get that. And, and, uh, song, song recordings for audio books really gives me a headache because you have to, you have two different licenses.

[00:20:31] You have to get lyrics, you have multiple owners of the rights. So the worst case I had was, Uh, the, uh, Bohemian Rhapsody, an author wanted to use the lyrics from that. Well, Freddy and four other people wrote the, wrote the lyrics. He died, he left it to five other people. Now we have nine writers and two publishing houses.

[00:20:55] So 11 entities owned pieces of a hundred percent of the rights for the lyrics, and you have to get permission from all of them. So, uh, I try to talk people out of, using lyrics. You can in the US you can use the title without any problem. A title is not copyrightable in the US so you can put in there, you know, I really enjoyed Bohemian Rhapsody.

[00:21:20] Well, anyone who's reading your book is going to know what that is and know what the lyrics were for that, so you don't have to quote the lyrics in your book. So that's part of what I try to do is, is I try to help the, the authors reduce their risk and a lot of times by, by doing something differently.

[00:21:38] What they're doing. So I spent a lot of time talking people out of things. 

[00:21:41] Teddy Smith: So if you had your character in your book, walking down the street, seeing the words to Bohemian Rhapsody, you probably wouldn't wanna actually put any of the words in there. You'd wanna just say he was seeing it. Correct? 

[00:21:50] Dan Miller: Exactly.

[00:21:50] Teddy Smith: Exactly. 

[00:21:52] Dan Miller: No harm, no foul that way. 

[00:21:54] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Now, are there any other, um, things that new writers should be aware of when they're writing their books and, you know, we focus a bit on fiction. Like, is there, is there any nonfiction things that people should be thinking about as well? 

[00:22:07] Dan Miller: Well, actually in the US fiction works actually have more copyright protection than nonfiction works because it's more creative.

[00:22:15] So if you think about a fiction work, uh, I'm, I'm a, uh, a technical writer, so if you will, so it's nonfiction that, uh, where my expertise is. Um, so I'm, I'm quoting facts, in the US A fact cannot be copyrighted. Now, the expression of that fact can be. So, for example, if I wanted to say, you know, the sky is green, you know, I could take that position.

[00:22:40] If I copy somebody saying the sky is green, then you know, that's where I would need permission for that. Unless it was a 18 something written from the 18 hundreds. now the other thing I run into though is, is, uh, I get a lot of authors who use things, for example, that are published in the uk, publish in Australia.

[00:22:58] So then I have to figure out what your copyright laws are. So we have this, the, the agreement between countries called the burnt convention that says in the US will accept what your copyright laws are, and you accept what the US copyright laws are. And, you have, uh, I think you have, uh, the auth, the life of the author plus 50 years is the current.

[00:23:19] Law that you have in the uk? Yeah, and we have the wife of the author plus 70 years. So I have to figure out when I get permission from the uk is it under copyright in the uk and how does that, if it is, and it wouldn't be. So sometimes it's under copyright in the UK and not under copyright in the us. So I have to sort all that out as well.

[00:23:38] So, keep track of everything that you use. If you don't know where you got it, how am I gonna get permission for you? You know? I have to find it myself. Yeah. So I have to do a lot of, that's why we call ourselves the copyright detectives because we have to figure out where this stuff comes from, and then we have to figure out who owns the rights or manages the rights for that, and then get permission to use that.

[00:24:04] Give yourself a lot of time to do that. It can take months. For me to go through and get a response back from the publisher for that. So, uh, don't wait until you've got your book and being laid out for printing before you start the copyright process. Start early and it's even good to talk to someone before you get too far downstream to figure out what these issues are and what you need to keep track of.

[00:24:29] I had, uh, one author came to me, he had, uh, over 200 items that he didn't know where he got. The, uh, content. It was a, it was a memoir about his, uh, college football days. Basically it's, you know, he wanna do a scrapbook. It was Glory Days. That was the name of the book about his Glory Football Days. Uh, he had, he came back two years later and he'd identified all the other, the 200 sources.

[00:24:54] So I ended up clear over 600 items for him in one book. It was an 800 some page book about his glory football days. For that it was a legacy kind of a thing that he was wanting to do. Yeah, so keep keep track of this as you're going through the writing process where you got every quote, uh, don't overwork the quotes, but it's, it's too easy to forget where you got for, 

[00:25:18] Teddy Smith: for, for authors who are like just starting out and maybe on quite a tight budget, um, our plagiarism checkers a good place to start with looking for this.

[00:25:26] These copyright works or are they not really strong enough? 

[00:25:29] Dan Miller: You can use it. I haven't used them myself, but, again, it's gonna be an AI driven kind of a thing. So, uh, it, it's how reliable is ai And right now AI is not terribly reliable in a lot of instances for that. Right. There's a, there's a term, I don't know if you heard, is AI hallucinations?

[00:25:49] Yes. You heard that term? Yeah. So the, uh, there was a study I, I found recently that, About 30% of the outputs of AI are hallucinations of existing platforms. And with new AI platforms, it was as high as 79% hallucination. Wow. That means, it sounds reason, a reasonable response, but it's wrong. And a good example I saw on LinkedIn, and I've done it myself a couple of times, um, asking AI to identify the, uh, US capital city with the shortest name.

[00:26:24] The response was Mount Pel Vermont. Well, I think, I think Dover, Delaware is, Dover is a much shorter name than Mount Pel, for example. So it's clearly you, you could accept that as being correct, but it was totally wrong. So that's the problem with AI, is you could be getting things that you think are correct and are wrong.

[00:26:43] So I use, I start with an ai. prompt and then I go to the original sources. 

[00:26:49] Teddy Smith: Yeah, 

[00:26:50] Dan Miller: and that's what I check on. I'm looking for that in the original source. Uh, an example that I had, I was looking up the, uh, hourly rate of, uh, CPAs in United States. So I get this response back and it's saying that on average it's X dollars an hour.

[00:27:06] I look at the sources and I'll, I'll kind of paraphrase what I found because I don't remember the de exact details, but imagine it's Bubba's Bait Shop in Biloxi, Mississippi, a chat group, and they're talking about how much they paid their CPA. Well, AI cited that as a source, and yeah, I, I don't have a lot of confidence in a chat group talking about the hourly rate of A CPA, so I'm not gonna use that as a source.

[00:27:30] in a, in a book that I'm writing, uh, you know, it doesn't have the, uh, uh, authority, if you will, to do that. So you have to look at everything. So a phrase I, I was using the phrase trust, but verify, and that came from Ronald Reagan when they're looking at the nuclear weapons and all that. Well, now I'm thinking don't trust and always verify if you're using ai.

[00:27:54] Yeah, so I think that's the operative is, you know, you can use it to start, and I use it for research all the time, but then I go to the original source that the area platform is citing. So that's what I would encourage everyone to do. Don't just take the output, use that to help you find original sources for the content you're looking for.

[00:28:14] Teddy Smith: Yeah, definitely. Now, we've talked quite a lot about the content of the book inside. Mm-hmm. Is there anything that people need to be aware of about the book cover and image use as well? 

[00:28:24] Dan Miller: Yeah. You see AI all over, you go into a bookstore and you see AI everywhere. 

[00:28:28] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:28:29] Dan Miller: Again. The way an image is created in AI is you put in a prompt.

[00:28:35] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:28:35] Dan Miller: And then it spits, it output out, 

[00:28:38] Teddy Smith: and images copyrighted in the same way. 

[00:28:41] Dan Miller: No, that AI image is not claimable in the us. You cannot claim copyright because you didn't create it. The AI platform created the machine, created it, if you will, and in the US a machine cannot hold a copyright nor could an animal.

[00:29:00] There's one where a, a photographer Slater set up a camera in Indonesia and a and a monkey took all kinds of selfies, and then he published a book with all of these images and he tried to get a copyright on it. And us Copyright Office says, A, a, a monkey cannot hold a copyright. And it went through the court system and everything else.

[00:29:18] So, uh, PETA group protection of animal rights, uh, sued this guy to try to claim the copyright of the, the, uh, selfies that the monkey took so that the monkey would hold a copyright and that didn't go through. So the courts didn't know. Monkey can't hold a copyright. I can't figure out how they'd cash a check anyway if they got royalty.

[00:29:39] So just loads of bananas.

[00:29:45] So, you know, there's a lot of nuances. Uh, us copyright, well, any copyright law is really complex and I describe it as an onion and it has many layers and every layer will make you cry and you add, you add, uh, AI to it. It's just a bigger juicier onion than it makes you cry even more. So you have to be very careful how you use ai.

[00:30:06] If you want to claim copyright for it, if you're using it for marketing materials, you're not going to copyright that more than likely. So, you know, so it, it doesn't make any difference if you're wanting to protect the work though. So then someone else does not copy your stuff. Then, uh, you have to be careful with what you do and what you can disclose.

[00:30:26] It. It's complicated though, if you get a copyright. You don't know what's, uh, what's actually copyrighted in the book and what's not. If I put, uh, public domain content in a book that I write, I can copyright the book, but those public domain pieces are not copyrighted in there as well. So you always have that problem with a book that includes other people's stuff, is figuring out what is copyrighted.

[00:30:53] So what happens in the us you mentioned this earlier, a book that goes into the public domain. I can go out and reproduce that. Now if I write a new preface to it or I add illustrations or something else, I can actually file a copyright in the US for those new pieces that I put in there. Mm-hmm. Now, I'm, I, publishers do this all the time.

[00:31:13] They just let copyright on the copyright page, but you don't know what's actually protected and what's public domain. So that's part of the problem we've always had is to sort that out. You know? Yeah. What's, what's actually uh, covered and what is not. Yeah. That's 

[00:31:28] Teddy Smith: really interesting. Yeah. 

[00:31:29] Dan Miller: Now 

[00:31:29] Teddy Smith: we quite a lot of the stuff we've talked about today, I think people might be a bit now worried about writing 'cause there's so many pitfalls that they could come into.

[00:31:36] So let's finish with some good advice that people can do so they can carry on writing with confidence. 

[00:31:43] Dan Miller: Good advice. Well keep track of what you're doing. Yeah. Uh, so if you're wanting to use a, if you, uh, if you copy a work or if you write down a, a direct quote or something else, keep notes right there that this is a, you know, put it in quotation marks, put down the source of wherever you've gotten it for that, uh, that way you'll have a record or, you know, uh, scan it or, you know, do a screen capture.

[00:32:07] I do a lot of screen captures. With that. So keep good notes on what you've actually done. Uh, if you're wanting to use an illustration out of someone else's book, for example, uh, make, make a copy of that, uh, table or that graph or that illustration, and also copy the copyright page. Out of the book where you have it, because that's the first thing I have to do, is I have to try to find a, a picture of the copyright page and I'll ask the author, go find the book for me.

[00:32:35] And, uh, because I need to know, you know, when it was copyrighted, who copyrighted it. Uh, anything else for that. So keep, keep excellent records as you go through. It'll save you lots of more time downstream as you're going through that. Right. Um, so a filing system is essential and a filing, you know, tracking your, you know, your, uh, additions and revisions and edits and, and all of that, uh, is essential.

[00:33:01] Teddy Smith: That's really good advice. Thank you very much for that. Yeah. Now. What's, how, how do people work with you? What, what, what, what sort of services that you offer that people should be getting in contact with you for? 

[00:33:11] Dan Miller: So the first thing we do is, is, uh, we will assess a, a manuscript, for example, or they'll send me a list of all of the sources that they used to try to find out what is, what is copyright.

[00:33:25] What is not. Uh, so that's the first thing that I do. So I'll come back. Let's say you give me a, a work and you have a hundred different sources of direct quotes or illustrations or photographs for that. So I'll look at those a hundred items. Then all I'll have to do, I'll do a quick analysis whether or not they could be under copyright.

[00:33:47] So the US it depends on whether it, when it was, whether it had a copyright symbol, whether it was renewed. I mean, that's what I'm saying. There's five different laws I have to go through to figure that out. And then, so let's say I come back and I say there's 89 of your 100 books that may be under copyright.

[00:34:04] So, you know, do you want me to do the research to find out whether they are or not? Because that's my time when I have to do the research. So, uh, so I, I can give you a quote to do the research or the other thing. I'll come back. I'll ask you to send me your manuscript with those quotes highlighted, and if I come back and I look at your manuscript and I see you've used five words here, six words there, you know, whatever.

[00:34:29] I'll encourage you to go back and look at it and do this cost comparison. Is the gain of that direct quote worth the cost of me, of my fees, and any license fees that you may incur because a copyright holder can charge you to use their quote. And it's getting more and more expensive, uh, if you will. So yeah, I'll, I'll, uh, I'll try to talk you out of using so many direct quotes.

[00:34:57] You know, give it the, give it the cost test. Then if it is, then I'll give you a hard, a hard, uh, proposal and I'll say, okay, I'll, I'll go through the clearance process for X number of items. And here's my not to exceed price. So I don't like surprises. So I don't charge by the hour typically, unless it's just a, a straight consultation.

[00:35:18] And like, like let's say this was a consultation, then, you, you would pay me for 30 minutes to talk about your copyright issues or whatever else it might happen to be for that. So, uh, once that's done, then I proceed and I'll go out and identify the copyright holder. I'll seek permission. For how you want to use it.

[00:35:39] And uh, then once I get a, uh, a quote back, then I may help you negotiate the fees. If I think the fees are not appropriate or if you don't like the terms and conditions, I'll try to modify those all. It's getting more difficult to, to do anything about that. Um, and then you'll make a decision. Do you want a license or a grant to do that or not?

[00:36:02] Then, you know, you'll pay for the fee of whatever the rights holder. A lot of times it may be gratis. They won't charge you at all. Sometimes the rights holder will come back and say, no, you don't have permission, or you don't have any choice. Then you just have to take it outta the book. Right? And they can do that for whatever reason they want to.

[00:36:17] They, uh, maybe they don't like the context and some people will ask for the paid job, the page before and the page after their quote to see how you used their quote. And they could come back and say, I don't like your treatment. You don't have permission, and you just have to take it out. 

[00:36:31] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Brilliant.

[00:36:33] So, well, I think that's really good advice. Thank you so much. Um, if people wanna get in contact with you to talk about these services or to, to book up a consultation, where's the best place to do that? 

[00:36:41] Dan Miller: Uh, go to our website and it's just the copyright detective.com. There's all kinds of contact, you know, contact us forums and all those kind of things, uh, in there.

[00:36:53] And also if you want to hear what, what I'm talking about, ai, there's a page in there called workshops and we've actually got some, uh, recordings that you can actually listen to. So there's a couple of, uh, presentations that I've done and there's a number of podcasts. So, and with your permission, I'll actually have a link to this podcast so that the audiences anywhere can actually see what you and I talked about today.

[00:37:17] Teddy Smith: Do I have to give you copyright permission to put it in there? 

[00:37:20] Dan Miller: You have to gimme permission not to link it, but if I wanted to put your recording in there Yeah, you, you own the recording. According to us copyright law, 

[00:37:30] Teddy Smith: how much do you think I should charge you to put, to give you permission? 

[00:37:34] Dan Miller: Yeah, well I hope, I always hope for gratis, so anyway.

[00:37:38] Yeah, yeah. 

[00:37:39] Teddy Smith: Well thank you so much for coming on. It's been great chatting, Dan. And um, yeah, I'll speak again soon. 

[00:37:43] Dan Miller: Thank you. 

[00:37:44] Teddy Smith: Thank you very much. Thank you so much for tuning into the Publishing Informant Show. I really hope you found today's episode inspiring. I absolutely love chatting to authors, writers, and people in the publishing world.

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