At LESA, we write our own stories and authors must always be paid

On 28 July, Vísir published an article by Jakob Bjarnar reporting that authors had received an unusual offer from parties developing an AI application to support reading instruction. Hildur Knútsdóttir described being asked to hand over her texts free of charge while the project was still in development with payment promised later, perhaps, once the product was ready. Several other children's book authors received the same request. The reaction has been fierce, and understandably so.

Since the article was published, a number of people have contacted us at LESA to ask whether this was us. It was not, and I feel it is important to remove any doubt entirely.

Every single story is written from scratch

At LESA, we write all of our content ourselves. Every single story is written from scratch. We do not use text from published books with or without permission. We have our own editorial team, which has written all of the stories in LESA. There are now 365 of them, across three difficulty levels.

Our stories are designed as a support tool for reading instruction and are not considered literature in the traditional sense. They are grounded in reading research with regard to the introduction of words and sounds taught in reading, following the guidelines of the Centre for Education and School Services (Miðstöð menntunar og skólaþjónustu).

The stories are built on our own ideas, our own characters, and the story world we have developed for LESA. The same applies to the illustrations. An enormous amount of work lies behind all of this, and from the very beginning we have been committed to creating all of the content ourselves.

Our focus is solely on developing content for the youngest years of primary school. That is where we believe the need is greatest, and that is where we want to make our contribution.

Authors must be paid

When many authors receive the same request, it is no longer an isolated clumsy approach. It is a systematic search for other people's content on which to build a product. This is not a misunderstanding of copyright. If a business model only works by gaining free access to copyright-protected material, something is wrong with the business model. Hildur put it well in the interview, and I wholeheartedly agree.

At its core, this is not about AI, it is about respect for copyright. Authors do their work like everyone else and must be paid for it. That applies even when the product that uses their work is still in development. In fact, especially then. It is not reasonable to ask authors to bear the risk of a project's development without compensation.

AI will undoubtedly change a great deal in the coming years. It can become a powerful tool, including in reading instruction. But it does not change the simple fact that someone created the text and owns the rights to it.

We at LESA believe it is possible to build a powerful reading application for children without infringing on the rights of authors. Our goal is to spark children's interest in reading as early as possible. A child who becomes a reader early reads more, enjoys books more, and is more likely to buy books later in life. Even though our books are not literature in the traditional sense, they are our creation, and in that way, we stand on the same side as authors.

The first release of LESA is coming in mid-August.

The author is CEO of the software company Revera and founder of LESA.