The State of the Union: Being an Author in 2026
Not a post about gardening. A post about our reality right now.
As an author and co-author of six books, not counting ghost writing and other projects I’ve worked on, I’ve got some strong opinions about the conditions that we are forced to exist under right now, and probably going forward in the future. I think that those who have invested their money purchasing our works for themselves or others have a right to know about what has happened to not just me, but to many of us.
I guess you could call me one of the lucky ones. When I was awarded my publishing deals I insisted that my literary agent include mandatory registration with the US Copyright Office, completed and paid for by the publisher in the publishing contracts. This registration affords me monetary recovery rights of $150,000 per willful copyright violation. Anyone who publishes a creative work owns the copyright whether or not they register, but it is only the formal registration with the US Copyright Office that entitles you to the rights to recover financially.
At the time I battled a lot of intellectual property thievery online, in particular, thievery of my photographic works. Certain cannabis businesses, content creators, and some of these were large and established companies, felt entitled to take my images and use them to promote their own content or businesses. I have filed hundreds of DMCA takedowns over the years. A few times individuals or companies have actually paid me for licensing. But, typically I dealt with a lot of “can’t bleed a turnip” cases where the DMCA was my only course of action.
But I wasn’t the only one going after the thieves. My publisher and their distributor, Simon & Schuster, were also filing these takedowns and attempting to enforce my copyrights. Thieves easily got their hands on my intellectual property with the advent of the electronic book, and any time I used my photographic works from my books to promote my books on my website.
Then came AI.
Fast forward to 2025. I receive a legal notification in the mail that I have been identified as an author who has had their books used in the unauthorized training of an AI model, in this case, the Anthropic AI, Claude. And that I have been identified as a class member of a settlement, of which I may choose or not choose to participate in.
Later, what I discovered was that it wasn’t just one of my books that was pilfered and used to line the pockets of a billionaire, it was three of my books. My three most popular titles, in fact.
Anthropic AI had downloaded my books from a well known book piracy server and used my books to train itself. And it did this with thousands of other books too.
But I was one of the lucky authors. The titles that the billionaire pilfered were officially registered with the US Copyright Office. Thousands of other authors had no such luck, as their publishers had either forgotten to register their works, or they didn’t have contracts that specified registration, or they were self-published authors who did not understand how to protect themselves against intellectual property theft. In this settlement with the billionaire, there is no recourse for those who did not register their works with the US Copyright office. Not even a pittance. Not one cent. Because if the billionaire isn’t forced by the government to pay something, he will pay nothing.
Let’s talk about the pittance.
Because if you thought for one second that I or any legal representation would be able to enforce $150,000 x 3 copyright settlement against a billionaire you exist in some other interdimensional timeline.
As a matter of fact, this “settlement” allows the billionaire to admit to no wrongdoing whatsoever. Keep in mind that copyright violation is not just a civil matter, but it can also be a criminal matter.
The pittance for those with US Copyright Office registrations looks like this: $50,000 each goes to the three authors who brought the class action. And everyone else gets $3000 per each work that was pilfered by the billionaire.
No, I’m not even going to get $9000 for the three registered works of mine pilfered by the billionaire. Half of this goes to my publisher and then what is left of my half, 15% goes to my literary agent. And there may yet be more lawyer fees to pay from this, so if I am lucky, and being one of the lucky ones as I mentioned before, I am looking at a final settlement for me in the neighborhood of $1500-$3500.
So roughly less of 1% of what I am actually entitled to for willful copyright violation.
And like I said before, everyone else who did not have their works registered with the US Copyright Office, which runs into the thousands and thousands of books and authors, they get nothing, even though, technically, they own the copyright to their own works.
And here is the moral of the story:
The next time you see the cops or “asset protection” taking someone out of Walmart in cuffs for shoplifting, remember that no one takes the billionaire out in cuffs for pilfering anything from anyone. No one drags him before the court to pay the fine and reimburse you for what you are fully entitled to under the law the way the law is enforced for someone shoplifting from the billionaire.