News: Academic Publishing Weekly

PUP licenses content for AI, Register of Copyrights job in jeopardy again, Springer Nature reports strong first half

Posted on August 6, 2026 in News

AI Content Licensing Gains Steam in the University Press Market

Academic publishers are increasingly working to establish controlled, compensated channels for AI companies to use their content, with Princeton University Press (PUP) becoming one of the latest to pursue this approach. PUP recently signed a deal with AI licensing platform Cashmere to make selected titles available to copyright-compliant AI research tools using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). Under the deal PUP maintains control over which titles are licensed and under what terms. Cashmere prohibits licensed content from being used to train large language models and already works with publishers including Rockefeller University Press and Springer Publishing.

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More AI for the Research Workflow

Digital Science has launched Papers AI, an AI-native workspace designed to integrate research writing, data analysis, reference management, and collaboration within a single environment. Built by the team behind Overleaf, the platform’s AI assistant maintains context across an entire project while allowing researchers to review and approve all AI-generated changes. The workspace supports multiple formats including Word, LaTeX, Markdown, Jupyter notebooks, and CSV files, and emphasizes privacy by keeping projects on-device unless users choose to share or sync them.

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The Fight over Who Gets to Fire the Register of Copyrights Flares up Again

The legal fight over Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter has intensified, with the Trump administration arguing that a recent Supreme Court ruling supports the president’s authority to remove her. Not so fast, contend Perlmutter’s attorneys, who maintain that only the Librarian of Congress has that power. The dispute, however, has broader implications for U.S. AI and copyright policy, particularly because Perlmutter’s attempted firing last year followed a Copyright Office report suggesting that some unauthorized uses of copyrighted works to train generative AI may exceed fair-use protections—a position that Trump has not favored. Meanwhile, the House has passed legislation that would make the Register of Copyrights a presidential appointee, potentially reshaping the office’s governance and rendering the current legal battle moot if the Senate follows suit.

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Springer Nature Reports Robust First Half Financials

Springer Nature reported a strong first half of 2026, generating approximately $1.08 billion (€939.8 million) in revenue, up 6.2% compared with the same period last year, while profits rose 7.7%. Its research publishing business was a major driver of growth, with the number of published articles increasing about 13%. Open access and AI also continued to expand: Springer Nature added 19 new transformative agreements, bringing its total to 101 covering more than 4,400 institutions, while more than 60% of manuscript submissions were processed through its AI-enabled publishing platform. Following the strong results, the company raised its expectations for revenue and profit growth for the full year.

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Shareholder Sues Nvidia CEO and Board, Alleging Copyright Infringement

The call for copyright litigation over AI training is now coming from inside the house. An Nvidia shareholder has sued CEO Jen-Hsun Huang and the company’s board, alleging they allowed copyrighted books, videos, and audio recordings to be used to train Nvidia’s AI models while failing to adequately disclose those practices to investors. The complaint points to Nvidia’s alleged use of datasets containing pirated books and argues that mounting copyright lawsuits have exposed the company to significant legal costs, reputational damage, and declining shareholder value. Nothing spurs shareholders into action quite like a plummeting stock price.

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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. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer, (Milkweed Editions)
2. This Is The Plan: How to End America’s Meltdown and Save Democracy by Ben Wikler (W. W. Norton & Company)
3. The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon (Liveright)
4. The Book of Birds: A Field Guide to Wonder and Loss by Robert Macfarlane, Jackie Morris (W. W. Norton & Company)
5. Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane (W. W. Norton & Company)

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