I am alarmed to discover that Johns Hopkins University Press, one of the leading academic presses in the world is making deals with AI companies to license their titles to “train” LLMs.

Here is an urgent question for friends who are professors, authors, publishers, and lawyers: Should we sign over rights to allow academic presses to license our books and allow LLMs access to our publications?

It seems that many LLMs already have already accessed many of our publications, violating copyright laws to do so. However, there are already numerous lawsuits related to AI companies’ use of copyrighted material, including academic journal articles and research monographs. Multiple major lawsuits are already pending and others will certainly be launched soon.

Now, Johns Hopkins University Press has announced a new deal to license all of its titles to an unnamed company to “train” its LLM. The Baltimore Banner has published an article on JHUP’s announcement (25 July 2025).

Johns Hopkins University Press (JHUP) is one of the most important academic presses in the world and a bellweather for academic publication policies in the United States and worldwide. This case therefore has sweeping implications not only for JHUP, but for all academic authors around the world.

Here is an email that I recently received from the Johns Hopkins University Press, the academic publisher of my first book (a research monograph):

“Since generative AI burst on the scene, we have been carefully evaluating the potential benefits and the concerns raised about its risks. This technology—whether OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, or Anthropic’s Claude—is getting better every day. Our target readers are increasingly embracing it for search, research, and discovery. We have spent the last year exploring the possibility of licensing our books on one or more of these generative AI Large Language Models (LLMs). Here are some of the reasons why we feel now is the right time to move forward.

“Discovery. With readers moving from traditional search engines to AI-powered tools, it’s critical that your work is discoverable where your audience is. There are innovative technologies that, if adopted by the LLMs, will credit the sources of AI-generated responses. We believe that having the work in the LLMs in combination with an ability for readers to identify and click through to the original source is the best way to continue to engage with readers and disseminate your work widely.

“Guardrails on Content Use. As media reports have surfaced on some LLMs scraping content from pirated sites, we are increasingly concerned, although not certain, that the major LLM companies already have our books. Having a contract with legal language around how these companies may and may not use the content is the most effective way to manage the risk now.

“Financial. While we do not anticipate huge financial gain for individual books, the cumulative revenue would be meaningful for Johns Hopkins University Press and our mission. As we anticipate contraction in the higher-education market, these funds can help to sustain our important work as a non-profit publisher.

“Timing. While we hope that publishers, authors, and other content creators will prevail in upholding copyright as it pertains to use on LLMs, recent court decisions and other environmental factors point to heightened risk of decisions that may weaken our rights. We believe that these companies should pay for the use of your work. Our acceptance of their payments demonstrates that licensing is required. We are concerned that the window may be closing for such deals, especially for university press publishers like us, and so we need to move quickly.

“If your work is licensed for use in LLMs, you will receive the appropriate royalties as indicated in the contract we both signed before publishing your work.

“I hope that you agree with our reasoning for taking the step now to license your work for use in LLMs. While we have not yet signed any agreements for your book, we hope to do so in the near future. In your contract, you provide us with the rights to go ahead with this kind of licensing. However, we would like you to have the ability to opt out if you so choose.

“You do not need to take any action if you are fine with us moving forward with licensing your work on LLMs.

“If you prefer that we not license your work on LLMs, you need to send an email […] to request that an addendum to your contract be sent via DocuSign to opt out.”

Authors are being given only until 31 August 2025 to opt out of this deal.

I would welcome comments and advice on these issues….

Wolfe, Ellie. “Johns Hopkins University Press will License its Authors’ Books to Train AI Models.” The Baltimore Banner (25 July 2025).