News: Academic Publishing Weekly

"Human-authored" logo hits shelves, UK publishers contend with AI licensing demand, and ALA staff begin unionization efforts

Posted on March 6, 2026 in News

CCC Releases Two New Higher Ed Licensing Products for AI

The Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) has bolstered its AI re-use rights offerings for higher education by releasing two new licensing products. One is an internal-only AI re-use deal for text-based works from rightsholders. In this case, the CCC is limiting re-use to licensing inside the institution and does not apply to arrangements with external partners. The internal product is part of the CCC’s existing Annual Copyright License for Higher Education (ACLHE) and applies to use cases such as prompting, summarization, chat bots, and other uses. Second is AI Transactional Rights, which supports pay-per-use scenarios for specific AI use cases—an alternative to broader annual licensing deals.

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An Official Logo for “Human Authored” Books Is Now Available

Well, human and AI powered communications have arrived at their inflection point. Like food that’s identified as having been grown and processed without harsh chemicals or weirdo genetics, human authors now have their own official logo to confirm that they, not an AI, wrote their books. The Authors Guild announced that it has launched a Human Authored certification program that includes an official logo designating a book as written by a flesh-and-blood person. Launched as a members-only program in January, it is now available to the public. Non-Guild members can pay $10 for each book they want certified, which, says the Guild, “…may be used by authors and publishers who wish to distinguish their human-written books from the glut of AI-generated books already saturating the marketplace.” Certification logos are free for Guild members and awaiting registration in the US Patent and Trademark Office. Only registered users and publishers are permitted to use the logo. And yes, the Guild has an official definition for “Human Authored”: “A literary work is ‘Human Authored’ if the text itself was fully authored by one or more human beings and not generated by AI, except for a de minimis amount (such as through the use of AI-powered spelling and grammar check applications).”

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Awards Round-Up

The Association of American Publishers announced the recipients of its PROSE Awards. The program, which is celebrating its 50th year, recognizes top professional and academic titles in the Humanities, Biological & Life Sciences, Physical Sciences & Mathematics, and Social Sciences. The top honor, the R.R. Hawkins Award, went to Cambridge University Press’s Atlantic Cataclysm: Rethinking the Atlantic Slave Trades by David Eltis. Click through for the other category winners. On the library front, Clarivate announced the finalists for its inaugural Library Innovation Awards. The program is designed to “…recognize and support innovation by academic, national and public libraries worldwide.” An independent panel of judges reviewed more than 50 submissions from 11 countries and regions. Nine libraries in three categories were named finalists.

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UK Publishers Call for AI Transparency

Released concurrently with its new report on the AI licensing market, the United Kingdom’s Publishers Association has kindly asked the UK government to get its act together concerning copyright and AI. Arguing that “calls for a copyright exception for AI are unjustified,” the Publishers Association asks for legislation on “transparency requirements for AI developers” so publishers can profit off, as CEO of the Publishers Association Dan Conway, sees it, UK publishing as an “AI content superpower.” Perhaps most interesting is the report’s finding that “100% of major academic publishers in the UK are expected to be active in the AI licensing market by the end of 2026,” which clearly helped spur the Association’s action. The UK government is projected to respond to the request later this month.

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ALA Employees Begin Union Efforts and OverDrive Names New President

OverDrive has named its next President, Marc DeBevoise, who will also join the Board of Directors. DeBevoise’s previous roles include leading “digital experiences” at Brightcove, Paramount, and CBS Interactive. Founder & CEO of OverDrive Steve Potash stated, “Every day, librarians and educators turn effort into impact. Marc shares that spirit, and his leadership will help us make Libby, Sora, and Kanopy even more user friendly, more inclusive, and more joyful to use.” In other library news, American Library Association (ALA) employees have begun the process of forming a union, ALA Workers United. Working with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Council 31 in Illinois, employees cited “recent multi-round layoffs, increased workloads, benefit reductions, financial crises, ingrained salary disparities, and lack of transparent decision-making” as the motivating factors behind the move. Following the announcement, ALA’s executive director Dan Montgomery released a statement, writing, “We respect our employees’ legal right to organize and will engage in this process thoughtfully and in good faith.”

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Scholarly Communication: Economics and “Value Challenge”

To close out this week’s newsletter, we’re highlighting not one, but two Scholarly Kitchen articles. First, Melanie Dolechek reviews the results of the Society for Scholarly Publishing’s (SSP) recent poll, “Economic Outlook for Scholarly Communications in 2026.” Dolechek summarized key findings, with negative financial performances projected overall due to the fragility of research funding and “institutional budget constraints.” Dolechek digs into the economic impact factors, investment priorities, and critical challenges most weighing on the almost 300 respondents, narrowing in on several conclusions and predictions based on the data points. Next, Ashutosh Ghildiyal, Vice President of Growth & Strategy at Integra, parses through “how the value publishers provide is increasingly questioned, dismissed, or overlooked by key stakeholders.” Ghildiyal focuses on the “attitude gap” between publishers and academia, which, in his view, contributes to “an unprecedented legitimacy challenge” in academic publishing. What’s the solution? You’ll have to read to find out…

Independent Press Top 5 Bestsellers: Nonfiction
The American Booksellers Association and the Independent Publishers Caucus recently collaborated on an independent bestsellers list, which includes books from independent presses and sold in indie bookshops. Below are the top five nonfiction titles this week. Find this week’s full list of fiction and nonfiction independent bestsellers.

1. The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon (Liveright)
2. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Milkweed Editions)
3. On Democracy by Walt Whitman (Library of America)
4. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (Beacon Press)
5. Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next) by Dean Spade (Verso)

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