Publishers Association raises concerns about Oak copyright infringement

Publishers Association raises concerns about Oak copyright infringement

The Publishers Association has called on Oak National Academy to suspend the use of its AI-powered lesson assistant tool, Aila, following an admission that publishers' content was used in its development without permission.

In a response to a Freedom of Information Act request, Oak has admitted that resources provided by a number of publishers for the purpose of creating Oak's lesson corpus during the COVID-19 pandemic were used without permission in the development of Aila. This is likely to constitute copyright infringement.

The Publishers Association has written to Oak requesting further information and demanding that it 'suspend the operation of Aila' until it can demonstrate 'by appropriate independent technical evidence, that Aila can operate without using, reproducing, processing or transmitting' Publishers Association's members' Pandemic-Era Resources, or any content derived from them.

Dan Conway, CEO of the Publishers Association, said:

"It is frankly astounding that a government body should admit to utilising copyright-protected works for AI development purposes without permission. It is clear that Oak should be asked to suspend the operation of Aila while these concerns are addressed."

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