Piracy ‘steals’ a third of the book market, the use of AI is booming, especially among students

The use of AI-produced reworkings of reading books, university texts and professional content measured this year for the first time – i.e. book summaries and compendiums – is widespread. 12% of the population over 15 years old declares having used re-elaborations produced by the AI ​​regarding reading books obtained by other users, produced by asking questions to the algorithm, or by uploading materials protected by copyright to the AI. This percentage is 58% among university students for study texts and 22% among freelancers for professional editorial content. The user satisfaction rate with these reworks is over 70%. 45% of those who use these reworks for reading books keep them after reading them, 36% share them with other people. Among those who use reworkings of university books, 60% keep them and 22% share them. For professional contents, 45% keep them and 20% share them.

Only 34% of Italians over 15, 38% of university students and 42% of freelancers say they are aware of the fact that uploading content protected by copyright to AI without authorization is illegal. 63% of the sample defines piracy as a serious crime: although just a few percentage points compared to 58% in 2023 and 61% in 2021 and 2019, it is the highest rate since the surveys began. 40% of the sample also believe it is likely to be discovered and sanctioned, compared to 30% in 2023.

Barachini: “To combat piracy we need to involve young influencers”

“We must continue to work on combating editorial piracy by making all citizens, from the least young to the youngest, accountable for what this crime is. I think we need to work a lot on the world of influencers. Because we know that there are people followed by many very young people who even illustrate how these tools can be used for free for example to find a book, to receive a summary of a book, to receive parts of a book and therefore give the tools to commit a crime”. Thus the undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council with responsibility for information and publishing Alberto Barachini.

For the Undersecretary for Publishing, “we should try to involve these people in the opposite story, in how important it is to enhance that content which is content that you pay for. Because there is this fundamental element, the inversion of the web philosophy for which everything is available and everything is free”. For Barachini it is important “to gradually reverse the trend, especially among the younger ones, who since content has a cost, and sometimes it is a cost that is not even small because it pays for an entire chain of people who work for that product, it is right to find an alternative path. No, it is not right. It is damage that is done in that moment, it is damage that is done in perspective. I am available and active to continue this campaign, which is a campaign with which we will be able to protect the future of our sector, which has an impact very important employment.”

Cipolletta (Aie): “The level of piracy is dramatic, enforce the AI ​​Act”

The level of piracy remains dramatically high and produces enormous damage”. Thus the president of the Italian Publishers Association (Aie), Innocenzo Cipolletta. “An important novelty has emerged: alongside the historically rooted illegal behaviour, which we know well and which we have always tried to combat, today we find ourselves faced with a new challenge, given the impact of the improper use of Artificial Intelligence”, said Cipolletta who underlined the need to “enforce the Aie Act”. The tools today Our disposal, Cipolletta continued, “allows us to contain, at least in part, the damage caused by what we continue to define as ‘traditional’ piracy, despite the ever new forms in which it manifests itself. We are convinced that some small adjustments to existing tools could translate into significant improvements, making enforcement action even more effective. I am thinking, for example, of the possibility of intervening on messaging platforms and strengthening the measures to obscure pirate sites, combining the blocking, already in use, of the DNS, i.e. the name of the site that we type in the browser bar, with the blocking of the relevant IP, i.e. the unique numerical code that identifies each site and device connected to the Internet”.

For the president of AIE, Artificial Intelligence is, without a doubt, a great opportunity. “We know, in fact, that a large part of the publishers already use it habitually in their processes. But we must also bring to light all the critical issues related to the methods of creation and use of these systems. It is known that in many cases the training of the algorithms has been done with millions of books taken from pirated sources and, especially in the USA, this has led to the opening of various judicial fronts. The Ipsos Doxa investigation also certifies how the use of AI for the creation of summaries and compendiums which in fact replace the original books is constantly growing, especially among university students, which raises questions not only economic and legal, but also cultural”. On the one hand, “a structured campaign of education on reading and legality is necessary, which can reaffirm the value of books and intellectual work: the use of contents produced by AI systems requires great caution, and presents risks to the quality of education and training that we must strongly recall. On the other hand, rigorous attention to the implementation of the AI Act is essential. We cannot run the risk of seeing the protections provided by the legislation nullified, in particular in terms of transparency obligations on those who supply the systems and wish to operate in the European markets need to guarantee effective controls, clarity on obligations and full application of the rules”.

Riffeser Monti (Fieg): “We need a new law, epochal changes are underway”

“In these twenty years between the internet, social media and now artificial intelligence it is a wild west that has not yet been regulated. We ask the government, Parliament and the institutions to make decisions, to try to create the conditions for a new law that can receive all these epochal changes that cannot yet be reflected in a publishing law which dates back to 1981”. This is the appeal launched by the president of Fieg, Andrea Riffeser Monti. “We need the information to be truthful. In fact, we know that 51% of the news circulating is false. This is an epochal moment in which to intervene in this sector.”

“For publishers – added Riffeser Monti – the problems linked to piracy are divided into three phases: the first is paper; the second is digital; the third concerns economic resources. As far as paper is concerned, for me piracy also consists in the fact that, for one copy sold, there are ten readers. What does this mean? That people read the newspaper practically at the bar. This for me is also piracy, that is, the sharing of people who read the newspaper but don’t buy it. Then there is the situation of the digital part: we know very well that there are sites like Telegram and WhatsApp that exploded after Covid, after 2019.” As regards the “economic part and resources – according to Riffeser Monti – information is now divided between quality information and entertainment, but users no longer have the perception of this division because everything is mixed up. Now none of us when surfing the internet understands whether what we are reading is true or false, therefore – he warned – there needs to be a clear distinction between quality information and entertainment. Because for entertainment everyone favors the click that makes the most money, whereas information doesn’t make that much”, concluded the president of Fieg.

Mollicone: “I will promote the AIE-Rectors Conference meeting for campaigns on piracy”

To combat piracy “I will promote a meeting between the IEA and the Conference of Rectors to ask that the latter commits to allocating internal funds for all Italian universities for awareness campaigns which must be disseminated together with orientation for freshmen and every year in general within the universities”. Federico Mollicone, president of the Chamber’s Culture Commission, said this

“They are the right tool and context – he explained – to collaborate in the application and compliance with a national state law which protects publishers who see the most effective damage in the university publishing sector, despite the law on piracy, including editorial piracy, continuing to prove to be an effective law because, as can be seen from this revelation, there has been a decrease in acts of piracy in the university publishing context”.