The Johns Hopkins University will license its books to train proprietary large language models, an advanced form of artificial intelligence that generates human-like language, the school’s publishing division announced this week.

Authors have until the end of August to opt out of the licensing agreement. If they do not, their work will be used to help train AI models.

“As media reports have surfaced on some LLMs scraping content from pirated sites, we are increasingly concerned, although not certain, that the major LLM companies already have our books,” Barbara Kline Pope, executive director of Hopkins Press, wrote in the email to authors this week. “Having a contract with legal language around how these companies may and may not use the content is the most effective way to manage the risk now.”

Hopkins Press did not share which large language model company it will sign the contract with, and did not detail how much money it will receive from the deal. Spokespersons for the press and the university did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Leaders at the press have been exploring the possibility of licensing their books to a generative AI company for the last year, Pope wrote in the email to authors.

The university press is “concerned that the window may be closing” for making deals with AI modeling companies, Pope wrote, “so we need to move quickly.”

The terms that Hopkins Press would agree to would prevent the AI licensee from generating competing content, she wrote. The press has already signed a contract with an LLM company for some of its journal content.

Though there won’t be a large financial gain for individual books — authors are expected to earn “modest” returns of less than $100 per title per license — the cumulative revenue would be “meaningful” for the university press and its mission, Pope wrote in the message.

“As we anticipate contraction in the higher education market, these funds can help to sustain our important work as a nonprofit publisher,” she wrote.

Johns Hopkins has historically been the top recipient of federal research among colleges and universities across the country and has suffered losses of hundreds of millions of dollars amid cuts from the Trump administration.

Cuts to federal funding for USAID led to the largest layoffs in the university’s history this spring. The university has also paused most pay increases and has frozen staff hiring due to the federal cuts.

Johns Hopkins Press, however, isn’t facing those same financial difficulties, Pope told Inside Higher Ed.

Currently, the press maintains a backlist of about 3,000 titles and publishes around 150 new books a year. Usually, its authors are faculty and other experts in fields such as public health, science, higher education and the humanities.

University President Ron Daniels is one of many authors who received the email this week — he published his book “What Universities Owe Democracy” with the press in 2021.

If authors like Daniels decide to opt out of the AI contract, they must sign an addendum that includes a clause stating their work “may suffer as a result of or in relation to the fact that Hopkins Press will not exercise AI Rights in respect to the work.”

A representative for Daniels did not share whether he will allow his work to be included in the deal.

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