Magabala Books demands that First Nations storytellers are paid for their work and their rights upheld.

The theft of First Nations peoples’ intellectual property is not relegated to history.

We are seeing it now in Meta’s un-paid use of our creators’ books to train their generative artificial intelligence (AI). These books include titles by debut writers like Mariah Sweetman, alongside iconic works such as Ruby Moonlight by Ali Cobby Eckerman and bestselling authors Kirli Saunders and Bruce Pascoe.

Our books are not just books. Every story published by a First Nations creator is the culmination of thousands of generations of knowledge, care and experience.

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which Australia has endorsed, outlines the right of First Nations people to maintain, control and protect our knowledge and cultural expression.

The actions of Meta undermine these rights. 

A white-owned company using Blak voices without compensation is nothing new, but it's time this practice is called what it is – colonial theft.

We suggest Meta reads False Claims by Colonial Thieves, one of the few books they didn’t steal.

What you can do:

• Use The Atlantic's tool to check if your work has been stolen
• If your work has been stolen, report it by filling out this form for the Australian Society of Authors (ASA)
• Read this overview written for creators by the ASA
• Use your voice - speak to your networks, post on social media, write to your local member to parliament and sign this global statement on AI training.
• Get support if you need it, you can call 13YARN. We understand this may be upsetting, so look after yourself during this time. We're here to have a yarn if you need us.