We’re not going to be able to rely on the courts to protect us, seeing as the Authors Guild suit against OpenAI has already been partially defanged by a California judge and anyway the idea of relying on the good graces of supposedly-impartial judges has taken a real credibility hit in the last few years. As long as publishers and tech companies continue to chase the last highs of late capitalism, they are going to try to squeeze every last profit margin for whatever they can get—they’re already cutting corners on print quality and laying off staff while overworking those who remain, so it makes sense that they’d be willing to cut authors out of the equation altogether. {read}