Rakuten Kobo has updated its terms of service for the Kobo Writing Life self-publishing platform. They plan to utilize AI for various aspects of their business, including their bookstore.
The updated terms of service states “Kobo may utilize artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning algorithms or similar technologies, to read, analyze, and process the Works for the following purposes: enhancing the discoverability of the Works by categorizing and tagging content appropriately, and providing a personalized experience and targeted recommendations for customers; evaluating the suitability of the Works for sale on Kobo’s platform and ensuring adherence to Kobo’s Terms of Service; generating resources to assist prospective customers in making informed decisions, including, but not limited to creating keywords, promotional content, targeted advertisements, customer engagement strategies, and other materials designed to enhance the sales of the Works; and enhancing the experience of a purchased book by providing recaps, reading assistance, and accessibility features.”
Kobo’s new terms are explicit in saying that the company does not plan to use authors’ work to train generative AI. Therefore, they do not want any books on their digital bookstore to appear on major AI platforms, such as Meta, OpenAI, and others.
The updated terms of service were noticed by authors who publish e-books on Writing Life. A banner at the top of the page informs them that several new AI policies have been implemented. However, they did not send any emails or newsletters to educate people about the latest changes.
Engadget spoke to several authors about this whole situation. The website stated, “Authors have taken issue with the apparent lack of recourse provided to them. What happens if a work is incorrectly tagged as one genre when its author believes it more directly fits another? Or what if the “promotional material” Kobo generates includes some hallucination? The biggest issue for the writers was the potential for Kobo to deploy AI-generated recaps. Amazon implemented a recap tool on Kindle in April, utilizing generative AI to help readers return to a series or recall their place in a novel. Some authors have already found examples of the company’s AI inaccurately summarizing stories.
Rakuten Kobo CEO Michael Tamblyn posted a long thread on Bluesky about the logic of including an AI clause in the company’s terms. Tamblyn wrote, “Kobo is trying to make the job of connecting readers with authors easier, and streamlining the moderation process that goes into maintaining the Kobo Store, all while avoiding infringement of copyright.” “We are completely uninterested in creating new content using authors’ books, and don’t do anything that would allow us to do that,” Tamblyn wrote. “And we don’t want anyone else to do it either because we are in the business of selling books and would like to be able to keep doing that.”
Kobo Writing Life is similar to Kindle Direct Publishing. It allows authors to submit audiobooks and e-books to the Kobo bookstore and they earn a royalty of 70% from each book sold. Writing Life is certainly not the most popular self-publishing platform, since it only handles e-books. KDP is the market leader, since the Kindle bookstore is the dominant force and sells the most books. Authors can also sell print books too, this is something Kobo doesn’t do.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
