TLDR

• Mixed feelings over AI use due to ethical issues
• Unethical use of our IP – please don’t use our work to train or guide AI because when you do this you are stealing our livelihoods
• When you steal our work, you contribute to inequity, especially against women since copywriters are primarily female
• You can’t pick and choose which fundraising ethics and by extension, which stakeholders, you will care about more
• Even if it’s legal it is not ethical 
• The way forward + precedent for licensing and compensation
• Please support our crowdfunding campaign for legal help to protect copywriters’ livelihoods and use of our IP – we only want what is fair.

If I was working in the commercial sector, I would not be writing this.

But I work in the charity sector with many colleagues who I count as friends. And because we are supposed to be the caring sector, I am hoping the behaviour and choices I am seeing regarding the use of AI are due to people not understanding the issues I am about to outline. And once they do understand them, I hope they will make different choices.

CURRENT STATE OF AI

I have had mixed feelings over using AI due to many ethical issues. However, I reached a point 2-3 years ago where I felt we had no choice but to investigate AI. I have done extensive testing myself on LLM capabilities. Our current position is to not use generative AI for creative work, only for process and other initiatives we’re developing to improve copy. Our philosophical approach to AI is outlined here.

For several years now people have been asking me whether AI would take my job as a copywriter. I have not been concerned because the work we do is very specialised. We don’t just write copy. We apply best practice direct response principles, audience insights, behaviourial nudges, decision science, donor psychology and more to the appeals and campaigns we work on. This is not simple to generate through AI – I have tried.

However, over the last couple of years, we have become increasingly aware of charities and agencies using AI or developing bots to create AI-generated copy. 

I want to make clear that I am not against charities using AI as such. AI is here to stay. I have also accepted some people may find AI copy “good enough” for them. Or it’s cheaper so they’ll just use the bot. That’s fine as long as you use your own words and ideas. If you have a past appeal or newsletter article that you have written yourself then go ahead and use AI.

UNETHICAL USE OF OUR WORK

What is not fine is to take the direct mail copy or donor comms we have written and use it to train your bot or upload it into any AI tool to help shape your next appeal or case for support.

It is not fine to take the direct mail letter I wrote for you and put it into AI to generate your EDMs or your landing pages or your socials.

I am aware this behaviour has been occurring at a much larger scale over the last 12 months. Murmurings from other copywriters who are unhappy over their work potentially being used in this way. Anger from copywriters whose work IS being used in this way.

I have no issue if you take our DM letter and a human looks at it and takes the key messages to write your EDMs and socials. 

But putting it into AI to do it for you – HARD NO.

IP OWNERSHIP AND CONSENT

Ownership of the IP is a grey area. If you are an employee at an agency, then your employer owns the IP in your work. In a case like mine, where I am contracted to provide copy for a charity, the contract specifies who owns the IP. 

Some copywriters sign contracts assigning the IP to the client. However, because I have never used contracts with my clients, technically, I still own the IP. But I have been advised the client can argue they have an implied right to do as they wish with the copy, which may include uploading into an AI tool.

Now this is a grey area subject to legal testing. But even if it is legal, it is unethical.

I’m going to put it out there and some people will not like it.

If you put our work into AI to generate future copy, you are using it without my consent or the consent of the writers who work for me. You are stealing my livelihood and theirs.

And if you employ a copywriter and do this, you may technically own the IP to their work but you are stealing their livelihood.

Whether your copywriter is a permanent employee or a contractor… whether they signed a contract assigning IP or not… when they started working with your charity or agency, they likely never expected they would have to deal with this AI-related IP issue. 

They never got a chance to explicitly consent or negotiate the rights to how that IP is used when it comes to generative AI. Maybe (and it is only a maybe) you can claim you have the law on your side. But they did not then know the rights to that IP would become the rights to their ability to earn a living.

(By the way, I can provide my own personal guarantee to any writer who works for me – I will NEVER use your work to test or train an AI without your permission. In all the testing I have done with AI, I have only ever used MY work NOT yours.)

This very IP issue is one of the main reasons why I delayed my own foray into AI. I wanted to explore the benefits of AI but how could I when all the major generative AI companies built their products on the stolen IP of other writers and creatives? But in the end I did use AI due to what I call systemic hypocrisy.

Systemic hypocrisy occurs when you have little choice but to behave in a way that is contrary to your values. We all want to be greener but it’s very hard to live without a car. We want to wear sweatshop-free clothes but who can afford a $150 T-shirt? I want to use ethically developed AI but there is no such thing.

Choosing to go without a car or buy high-priced sustainable clothing or refusing to use AI comes with social, financial or business penalties that make it impossible to be a functioning member of society. That’s systemic hypocrisy. You can’t help being a hypocrite because it’s built into the system.

There’s a difference between being a systemic hypocrite, as pretty much all of us are, and directly contributing to systemic inequality, which most of us don’t want to do.

CONTRIBUTION TO SYSTEMIC INEQUITY – AND POVERTY

Oh, the irony of charities choosing to contribute to the inequities they’re supposed to be stamping out.

Make no mistake. When you steal our work without our consent, you are contributing to inequities that lead to poverty. This is a gendered act, disproportionately affecting women. ABS Census Data shows copywriters are 66% female. The majority of freelance writers asking me for work are women trying to balance family and work. In 16 years of business, I’ve had ONE man approach me for writing work.

Most copywriters are not high earners. Many writers I work with or know are mums with limited hours to freelance and would be well under the Australian median income, which is currently $74,100 (both FTE and PTE according to the ABS). Some are single mums.

And older women are the fastest growing group of homeless people in Australia. Are we as the caring sector going to contribute to this problem by stealing the livelihoods of women who are fast approaching that age bracket? They may be doing okay now… but anyone who works with homelessness charities sees people who were once working, contributing members of society now sleeping in cars, couch surfing or otherwise with no roof over their heads. We have interviewed such people ourselves.

While I want to be honest and not make it sound like every female copywriter I know is on the verge of homelessness, the financial impact of stealing their work is very real.

One writer told me her freelance work makes up a third of her household income. All her children have disabilities. A drop in income also means cutting activities that help them overcome their developmental challenges.

“It wouldn’t leave us homeless but potentially we’d have to move which would mean the kids having to change schools and move away from their therapists… One does private swimming lessons which cost more but he needs those because he can’t cope in a group… and they do footy and athletics which helps them socially.”^^

Another copywriter, who is struggling with mental health, says this.

“I am the sole income earner in my household, raising two young children. I spent the last decade building this business based on almost 20 years in the sector. I pour everything I’ve learnt from my own experience into what I write for my clients. The thought of my creative work being used to train a bot and ultimately replace me is disheartening. If I lose my livelihood as a writer, that will absolutely impact my ability as a mum to provide for my children.”

YOU CAN’T PICK AND CHOOSE YOUR FUNDRAISING ETHICS

Now I find this very interesting. It appears lots of charities want to use AI to generate their appeals because it will save them money so they can help more people. Okay I get that.

But it does appear to me that some charities pick and choose their ethical scruples over money.

When I first became a fundraising copywriter, I spent years arguing we should be allowed to use fundraising best practices… because they raise us more money so we can help more people. All those arguments we had over showing the need and using emotive stories. Then came the backlash against saviourism and donor as hero narratives (which I support). But when this was first touted as a problem, the big fear was that not using donor as hero would lead to raising less money.

Yet some charities were making strategic decisions that raising less money didn’t matter. They didn’t care about reduced income as long as their beneficiaries were portrayed in an ethical way. (Since then, I have tested and successfully pioneered copywriting alternatives to donor as hero which are now proven to work but that wasn’t an option at the time.)

So now I do have to ask. Why can charities make a strategic decision to take a hit to the bottom line because they believed it the right thing to do for one of their stakeholders…

… and then NOT make a strategic decision to take a similar hit to the bottom line for another one of their stakeholders, who have made a significant financial contribution through their creative talent and efforts?

I’m truly hoping this is only because charities (and agencies) have not considered the full ethical implications of this and they will rethink their approach after reading this. Because I believe care of humans is more important than pursuing innovation, productivity, efficiency or results at any cost.

And note, many of these affected copywriters have deliberately chosen the caring sector over the corporate. They get paid less because they place more value on kindness, compassion and people.

THE WAY FORWARD

I am speaking up about this now because I am one of the few copywriters in the charity sector who can. Other copywriters don’t want to speak out as they are worried about losing contracts or jobs. I’m aware I am taking a big risk and may lose work because of it.

To recap, if you want to use AI to generate your appeal copy and donor comms, that’s okay… as long as you use your own work to do it.

Using or uploading into an AI tool the work of your copywriters without their knowledge, consent and/ or appropriate compensation specifically for that AI use is not okay.

Even if you argue that is legal, it is not ethical.

Some people may scoff and say I have a vested interest. This is true. But that doesn’t mean the points I raised aren’t valid. Writers and creatives from all industries have been talking about this for years now.

And there is recognition writers and creatives should be compensated if their work is used to train generative AI. While the cases below relate to book publishing and news, there is precedent.

Microsoft + HarperCollins deal: thousands of non-fiction authors were offered the choice (they could say no) to opt in to a three-year license allowing an AI company to use their books to train an AI model. Read details here, here and here plus an author who accepted the deal here. 

Bartz vs Anthropic class action: you know how Anthropic downloaded all those pirated books to train their AI? Now there’s a $1.5 billion settlement fund – the court gave final approval in July this year. Read details here, here and here plus a LinkedIn post here.

Prorata.ai: their business model is set up to compensate creators. Read details here. 

OpenAI + News Corp: technically it is the publisher not the writers who got paid but still a recognition that writing labour used with AI should receive compensation. Read here.

Plus the Australian PM made a public commitment in July to ensuring creatives were adequately compensated for the use of their work in AI training:

“Australian writers, musicians, artists and journalists must retain ownership and control of their work… No company should use Australian books, music, art or news to build or train AI without the artist’s control. That includes the artist’s control of the price and value of their work. Anything less, is theft. No country has got this right yet. Nowhere do artists or rights holders have sufficient control of their work, when it comes to AI training.”

Generative AI technology is developing at a much faster rate than any of us can keep up with. It took me a long time to understand my legal position and even to figure out how I wanted us to work with generative AI. Hence we are here now.

WHAT TO DO NOW

If you are one of Creagivity’s wonderful charity clients, then I will be contacting you in the coming weeks to discuss new terms and conditions around using our work with generative AI.

If you have never used our work in AI then all is well. It’s likely nothing will change for you.

If you are a current or past client of ours and have already used our work in AI then I won’t hold it against you as long as you stop doing it now. Please. Then please talk to me. We are all working out appropriate and ethical use of AI. I am looking at ways in which you may be able to use our work under an appropriate license as per the legal advice I am seeking below.

If you are using your copywriters’ work in AI, then please reconsider your actions. Again, just because it might be legal does not mean it is ethical.

LEGAL HELP

I am currently seeking legal advice to protect the livelihoods of fundraising copywriters and the use of our IP, including my own.

Because the costs of this are prohibitive for our small business, I am inviting other fundraising writers, creatives and sympathetic fundraising friends to support our crowdfunding campaign to raise money for legal help as follows:

• A customer agreement template to be made available to copywriters that will outline restrictions on using your work to train or be uploaded into AI models and tools.
• A licensing agreement template to be made available to copywriters with provisions relating to scope of license, fees, attribution, permitted purposes and termination.

I have committed $2500 personally to these costs already and hope to raise the remainder from other kind and generous people.

Mary Anne Plummer from Exuberance has made a starting pledge of $1500. She says:

“AI-generated copy is not just a threat to the livelihoods of Exuberance writers. It cheapens trust and connection. It treats donors as just another resource to be managed and commodified. It will undoubtedly make someone a lot of money – but it won’t be charities who benefit in the long run.”

Another copywriter has pledged $750. She wishes to stay anonymous as she is concerned about potentially losing work and she has a family to support.

Several other copywriters have indicated they wish to support but can only manage a small amount or can’t currently afford it as they do not make a lot from copywriting.

• If you’re a creative who employs copywriters like me, please consider a larger gift of $500, $1000 or more to help protect yourself and your copywriters.
• If you’re a lone copywriter, please consider donating an amount you can afford that is meaningful to you. 
• If you’re a copywriter who can’t afford to donate, then please get in contact with me at june@creagivity.com.au as there are other ways you can support this campaign.
• If you’re a sympathetic friend who wants to donate, thank you so much for supporting us copywriters, we truly appreciate your kindness and generosity. And personally, it means a lot to me that you care.

When you donate to this campaign, you are helping your charity copywriters to retain their livelihoods as well as keeping trust, authenticity and the human element in fundraising communications. 

^^ Some details changed for privacy reasons.