What role do books play in training AI models, and how might digitized books be made widely accessible for the purposes of training AI? What dataset of books could be constructed and under what circumstances? A new paper investigates the concept of a responsibly designed, broadly accessible dataset of digitized books to be used in training AI models.

  “Opening up cultural artifacts from African organizations might change how we’re represented in online spaces” says Kirsty von Gogh from Johannesburg. She also shares how increasing production of culturally, linguistically, and contextually aware and relevant content can ensure a more representative digital space for Africans, and how open licensing increases accessibility to this content.…

Yesterday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a motion for summary judgment calling to reject the lawsuit against the Internet Archive (IA) brought by four big publishers that threatens IA’s controlled digital lending (CDL) program. Creative Commons fully supports this motion. Here’s why.  The Internet Archive is an American non-profit library preserving and giving access…

Some very exciting news for authors, publishers, and readers: Today, Google launched a program to enable rightsholders to make their Creative Commons-licensed books available for the public to download, use, remix, and share via Google Books. The new initiative makes it easy for participants in Google Books’ Partner Program to mark their books with one…