HarperCollins’ Brian Murray, current chair of the board of the Association of American Publishers, speaks during the organization’s 2025 annual meeting. Image: AAP, Publishing Perspectives
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
A Fluke of Timing
Seven minutes after the Association of American Publishers (AAP) opened its annual meeting today (May 8), white smoke from the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City spooked several rooftop seagulls and signaled that a new pope had been selected in conclave. And by the time the publishers’ meeting ended, 90 minutes later, the world was hearing its first words from an American pontiff, Robert Prevost of Chicago.
If there’s a metaphorical line to draw between these two unrelated events —which of course simply happened to occur simultaneously—it may lie in the fact that both the 1.4-billion-member Catholic Church and the book publishing industry are each ancient constructs. And both are pressured in a stressed world.
Books; the power of reading; the profound need today for critical thinking; truthful communications; and a respect for intelligence; all are facing new struggles. Some of these challenges were examined during the meeting. And in the country this publishers’ association serves—a nation at war in its political life—many observers, whether of any or no faith, may have felt a peculiar gravity in watching so moral an icon being elevated from the States.
Needless to say, the annual meeting of the Association of American Publishers proceeded without connection to the news from Rome. But many watching the meeting, smoothly delivered digitally, probably had some background awareness of what was unfolding on a balcony in Europe and providing a curious shudder of importance to the meeting’s commentary—among the starkest heard yet from the AAP in regards to AI and Big Tech.
Jenna Bush Hager: ‘The Daughter of a Librarian’
Sanyu Dillon
The AAP’s program opened with a long conversation between Penguin Random House Publishing Group president Sanyu Dillon and NBC’s Today Show and “Read With Jenna” book club host Jenna Bush Hager as keynote speaker. Warm and friendly, the chat was mostly the equivalent of starting some hard work with a big marketing smile, but Bush Hager had the grace at one point to make an obvious reference to book banning.
Dillon had asked about her thoughts on publishing’s future, and Hager said, “There’s things happening in my home state of Texas that kind of break my heart, because I believe in intellectual freedom.
Jenna Bush Hager
“With my kids, I get to decide how I want to raise them. But I also believe in the librarians at their school and at the local library where I live, helping to recommend what’s appropriate while making sure that all kids get access to stories that represent them.
“And so that’s something we’ll be thinking about—ways that I can help in any of that. Because that obviously breaks my heart, as the daughter of a librarian.”
Brian Murray: ‘An Unprecedented Legal Battle With Big Tech’
We will quote Brian Murray and Maria A. Pallante here at some length because the meeting today, while made open to the news media was an invitational event, and an extensive assessment of where the American publishers’ association sees the state of its confrontation with Big Tech quite significantly formed the heart of the meeting.
HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray, the current chair of the AAP’s board of directors, spoke highly of the nine-years-and-counting direction of AAP CEO and president Maria A. Pallante and of many others whose service makes the organization so effective.
Murray, Pallante, and several of the key staffers of the association were in Guadalajara for the International Publishers Association‘s (IPA) International Publishers Congress in December, and many of the world body’s 84-nation membership have mentioned being glad to see the association and some of its leadership taking positions on IPA committees, raising the US publishers’ engagement overseas.
“We need to acknowledge the stakes here and recognize the fight we’re in. This is a battle taking place in the public square, on university campuses, and in global capitals all around the world. Our opponents are lobbying for AI exceptions to copyright for national security reasons that will turn over our global IP leadership to bad actors and nation-states that have the exact opposite effect as intended by beginning a rapid race to the bottom.”Brian Murray, HarperCollins
Murray was there for more than cheerful commendations, however, saying in part, “I would like to say a few words concerning copyright in this country. Copyright has been a part of US law since our nation’s founding, Article One, Section Eight, Clause Eight of the US Constitution gives Congress the power to enact copyright laws, and there has been a federal copyright law on the books continuously since 1790.
“The framers recognized the importance of creating an economic incentive for writers and artists to enjoy the fruits of their labor. And for 235 years, this bedrock principle has led to a global IP industry, arguably centered here in the United States, the benefits of which have been extraordinary.
“According to the 2024 Copyright Industries in the United States Economy report, the value added by total copyright industries to the US GDP exceeded US$3.3 trillion, accounting for more than 12 percent of the country’s economy. And along the way, the total copyright industries employed more than 21 million people in 2023, accounting for 11 percent of private employment in the United States.
“And yet, on April 11 of this year, Jack Dorsey, a founder of Twitter, tweeted out to his seven million followers, four chilling words: ‘Delete all IP law.’
“Imagine that. Elon Musk, X’s current owner, responded, ‘I agree.’
“We must acknowledge that we are in an unprecedented legal battle with Big Tech, not only for the future of content and intellectual property in this country, but also for our foundational and fundamental rights as citizens of the United States.
“On one side of this war are Big Tech billionaires and founders who claim they just want to make the world a better place—they want to save humanity—but their true goal is to make their platforms all-encompassing and to raise their valuations from billions to trillions, without care or concern for who or what they may destroy on their way.
“There’s a reason that industry’s motto is ‘move fast and break things.’ But when the things you’re breaking are laws, laws directly authorized by our Constitution and upheld for more than 200 years by Congress and the courts alike, well, we have a name for that in our country, and it’s not ‘innovation.’ It’s ‘violation,’ the violation of laws that protect storytellers, educators, researchers, artists, inventors, and creators. [This] puts at risk not just what it is to be American, but also America’s position as a global leader in IP and in human freedom.
“We need to acknowledge the stakes here and recognize the fight we’re in. This is a battle taking place in the public square, on university campuses, and in global capitals all around the world. It’s a battle that’s made its way to the White House, to Congress, and to the courts. Our opponents are lobbying for AI exceptions to copyright for national security reasons that will turn over our global IP leadership to bad actors and nation-states that have the exact opposite effect as intended by beginning a rapid race to the bottom.
“We’ve all seen the harms of unregulated global tech already. Now we have a new and even more powerful technology in artificial intelligence. We need sound strategies on policy and litigation. We need a broad set of allies, and we need to be smart. We need to have our eyes wide open and be honest with ourselves and with each other about who is on our side and who isn’t. It’s not always clear.
“Now my last point. Do you know what makes American AI models so good? I’d argue it’s not the chips that can be purchased or the code. Much of the code is open-source. Rather, it’s the high-quality professional content that Big Tech stole from sites like LibGen to train those models, crawling X and Reddit and the rest of the public Web will impart very little intelligence on any model. We know that, and they know that. That’s why they decided to steal countless works of literature and art to train their AI, and that’s the very practice that needs to be stopped.
“Big Tech and creative industries have come up against each other many times in the last several decades, and publishing has been able to not only survive but to thrive. Can there continue to be a symbiotic relationship between Big Tech and publishers, the safeguards of human creation and freedom of expression? Yes, we’ve proven that high-quality human-generated content is an essential raw material for high-quality world-leading AI, and it’s a resource that America should have a natural advantage in, including compared to rival nations that notoriously do not respect copyright.
“But in order for that to occur, the fundamental and foundational protection of copyright must be respected, absolutely.”
Maria A. Pallante: ‘Symbiotic Superpowers’
Maria A. Pallante, CEO and president of the Association of American Publishers, speaks in the 2025 annual meeting. Image: AAP, Publishing Perspectives
Pallante, whose background as a former Register of Copyrights and director of the US Copyright Office has been a mainstay of her leadership, followed Murray, saying, “The state of publishing is strong—last year we achieved annual revenue of some US$30 billion in the United States alone. But we have many issues to navigate: From tariffs and supply-chain disruption to First Amendment challenges, to reduced funding for research and innovation, to the proliferation of piracy.
“Yet none of these issues approach the sea change to policy debates that is artificial intelligence. As we know, there are many upsides to AI, especially generative AI, from efficiencies and speed to medicine and education. And it is suddenly ubiquitous. We might say AI is in everything everywhere all at once.
“But at AAP, our concern is fairness and a functioning copyright system. And there’s an inclination to say, ‘We’ve been here before.’ But that’s not true. Yes, there are echoes of prior copyright debates between copyright owners and copyright users, but the stakes are much greater now because copyright is the substructure of publishing.
“We have many issues to navigate: From tariffs and supply-chain disruption to First Amendment challenges, to reduced funding for research and innovation, to the proliferation of piracy. Yet none of these issues approach the sea change to policy debates that is artificial intelligence.”Maria A. Pallante, AAP
“Copyright is how publishers acquire works from authors, how authors get paid, how publishers recoup their investments, how future authors are funded, how readers and researchers are inspired, how markets are created, and how the public interest is served. Relatedly and globally, we have to be concerned about veracity in AI outputs. The publishing industry has always been an antidote to misinformation, but with the borderless power of AI, the threats are more dangerous. They call publishers to engage on questions of how and where AI is developed and trained, and what it generates—which are not only legal questions but also business strategies.
“The current White House is an important point of engagement for AAP because president Trump’s Action Plan, expected in July, will influence the global framework for AI policy. We are hopeful. The United States has proven time and again that intellectual property and technology are symbiotic superpowers.
“Nevertheless, the largest AI companies and their investors are valued at astronomical figures that dwarf the publishing industry. Meta is a $1.6 trillion conglomerate that plans to invest over $60 billion in AI in this year alone according to Forbes. OpenAI, whose business is built solely on AI, doubled its valuation in just six months and is currently valued at $300 billion according to The New York Times. These are American companies headquartered in the United States, but they do business all over the globe, and their lobbying is well-funded and far-reaching. Regrettably, in their submissions to governments, they oppose our goal of a win-win marketplace, in which everyone who contributes to a product participates financially and makes decisions.”
Pallante went on to dismiss the key objections of Big Tech—including that licensing content is a “burden” and that fair-use exceptions are required because forcing Big Tech to license content puts them at a competitive disadvantage and creates a “national security risk” for the United States.
“With appreciation for everyone gathered today,” Pallante said in conclusion, “I hope you will lean into this magnificent industry as well as AAP’s advocacy work. We all have a role to play in making the world better educated, better informed, more imaginative, optimistic, and safe. The security of publishing is directly related to security everywhere.
“The public interest is what we do best.”
More from Publishing Perspectives on copyright is here, more on issues in artificial intelligence is here, and more on the work of the Association of American Publishers is here. Publishing Perspectives is the International Publishers Association’s world media partner.