There's no shortage of AI topics nowadays since a lot of tech companies are riding into the hype. Unfortunately for all parties involved, that's not always a good thing, especially in this instance where AI-generated books are falsely published under the name of a real author on Amazon.
Amazon Removes the Books After Backlash
The author in question is Jane Friedman, who is already a veteran author in the industry, said that the books listed her as the author without her consent. The author immediately filed an infringement report to the retail giant to have the content removed.
At first, Friedman only received an automated response after filling out an official form. The company then asked for her trademark registration numbers, which she claimed most authors did not have. It was a few hours later that Amazon said they were reviewing the case.
The author discovered that there were books published under her name through a reader who reached out to her, saying that she noticed the difference in writing styles. Upon realizing that it was not the author's work, the reader immediately tried to inform Friedman.
When interviewed by Gizmodo, she says that she anticipated Amazon would not take down the books if she simply asked, and that it would take "a publicity nightmare." In a way, she was right. Amazon refused to take down the books since she did not own the copyright of the AI works.
A brief update: After going back a few times with Amazon on this issue, I was notified the books would not be removed based on the information I provided. Since I do not own copyright in these AI works and since my name is not trademarked, I'm not sure what can be done. https://t.co/F5KuK4F36X
— Jane Friedman (@JaneFriedman) August 7, 2023
Luckily for Friendman, there was backlash about the half a dozen books that were falsely published under her name. She also pointed out the fact that this can also happen to other authors, yet it was a difficult process before the matter was resolved.
Amazon eventually caved in and removed the books from the site but by then, there were already several copies sold. Friedman says that although she did not know how many people bought them, she assumed that there were at least a handful.
Amazon spokesperson Ashley Vanicek says that Amazon had clear content guidelines governing which books can be listed for sale and promptly investigate when a concern is raised, adding that they welcome author feedback and correct matters when they've made an error.
Amazon's AI-Generated Content Problem
This is not the first time that Amazon published AI-generated content. Back in late June, the young adult romance bestseller list on Amazon Kindle Unlimited was riddled with AI-generated books with non-sensical titles.
Some of them were titled "Apricot bar code architecture" and "Jessica's Attention," as pointed out by Vice. Amazon took it down two days later, but the question remains how these books made it to the platform in the first place.
So far, the retail giant still has no strict guidelines that would prevent this kind of incident from happening again. As Jane Friedman said, "You shouldn't have to raise a s***storm in order to get them to do the right thing."
The author's predicament just proves that others would have a difficult time reporting AI-generated books to have them taken down, especially if they were published under false pretenses.
