Tag Archives: publishing

A thief in the night

Imagine if you will that you are sitting quietly in your house when you hear the door open. A man comes in and starts helping himself to your possessions. You remonstrate with him and he pays no attention. A quick phone call brings in the authorities but to your astonishment they arrive, ignore you, congratulate the thief and tell him that to incentivise him in his good work he will get a series of tax breaks.

It couldn’t happen here. 

It is. 

We are a publisher and recent months have seen a growing swell of complaints from our authors about theft of their texts without any permission. At least 7.5 million books without license or recompense into Artificial Intelligence systems, tens of millions of articles and shorter pieces. The action of the UK government is not to defend the intellectual copyrights and property of its citizens but to legislatively legitimise this theft with a generous dose of cream in tax breaks on top.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 4 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • Geoff Reid
    More important than William's erudition is his wisdom! It woudn't do us any harm to look at the language used in other European countries when debating tax leve...
  • Tristan Ward
    Sorry - here's the Dan Neidle link: https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2026/06/05/taxing-other-people-uk/...
  • Tristan Ward
    I strongly recommend people read this piece from Dan Neidle(*). In brief: 1) there’s strong public support for increasing taxes that other people pay; 2)...
  • Jason Connor
    Excellent detail on all the results - thank you....
  • Jason Connor
    I agree with Mick Taylor. Many wealthier posters here forget about struggling pensioners. The rising cost of living and energy bills hit them hard. I support a ...