25 ms·

I would rather see my books get pirated than this

• throwawaysleep 3y ago
  Can you actually make real money at this? As it seems trivial to generate tons of books on niche topics if it is.
  • system2 3y ago
    Maybe not for an engineer from silicon valley. For a third world country guy with no job, even $50 a month would mean survival.
  • ThrustVectoring 3y ago
    You don't even have to generate the book until after it's sold.
    • rgoulter 3y ago
      The "don't need to have it to sell it" is how we got "Amazon’s $23,698,655.93 book about flies": https://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358 https://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358 A bot with a good reputation adds a listing at 1.27x the price of a worse-reputation listing. Another bot had a conflicting strategy: selling at 0.99x the price of the next cheapest.
      • ThrustVectoring 3y ago
        Not talking about the physical book, that's old news. LLMs drive the price and time requirements of "writing" the book down below what one consumer would require. So you could theoretically generate a listing, wait until someone hits it, and then ask the LLM to write a book that hopefully vaguely resembles what you promised.
  • resolutebat 3y ago
    Yes, and this has been a problem for years: back in the 2000s, Amazon was already flooded with print-on-demand "books" that basically consisted of Wikipedia articles.
• optimalsolver 3y ago
  Pre-LLM content is going to become the most valuable substance known to man. Don't blame Reddit and the like for circling wagons around it.
  • kneebonian 3y ago
    If you think reddit is genuine human content I have same bad news for you buddy.
    • owlninja 3y ago
      I believe the majority of it is, what do you have that says otherwise?
      • shinycode 3y ago
        Some people commented here on HN they created bots that played along as humans by answering coherent comments on random posts to train their AI with the ability to argue and dig into the discussion. There’s a thin line between this and fake posts
        • mattigames 3y ago
          It seems they were talking about reddit content before 2023
          • squeaky-clean 3y ago
            It's been very noticeable since at least the 2016 election.
      • memefrog 3y ago
        Large amounts of it might be written by humans, but they're humans that are being paid to promote products and brands. It's an open secret.
    • paranoidrobot 3y ago
• Legend2440 3y ago
  Sounds like an Amazon problem, not an AI problem. Amazon doesn't seem to curate their marketplace at all. It's full of fake products and no-name chinese vendors selling low-quality goods.
  • DangitBobby 3y ago
    I'm sure many of the new problems in the AI era will rhyme with this one. There are vulnerabilities and weaknesses baked into systems that we just don't appreciate because it wasn't practical to exploit them. Now with the speed and scale made possible with AI, there will be thousands of previously unexplored ways to mislead, scam, and waste people's time.
  • tryptophan 3y ago
    Might as well go to aliexpress and buy from the original source for a 50% discount.
    • Legend2440 3y ago
      True, but then you gotta wait until next month instead of next day. Amazon's delivery network is the biggest thing they have going for them.
      • blibble 3y ago
        should be their new employee cult slogan "who cares what we deliver as long as it gets there quickly" not quite as snappy as "Customer Obsession", but more honest
  • poorjout 3y ago
    [dead]
  • a_bonobo 3y ago
    I'm honestly amazed people still buy at Amazon. It's similar to AliExpress in terms of reliability, but with the added bonus of the listing lying to your face!
• macspoofing 3y ago
  >I did file a report with Amazon, complaining that these books were using my name and reputation without my consent. Amazon’s response: “Please provide us with any trademark registration numbers that relate to your claim.” When I replied that I did not have a trademark for my name, they closed the case and said the books would not be removed from sale. I see you had a typical customer service experience with Amazon. Out of curiosity, how do intellectual property laws handle someone publishing a work under someone else's name? Is that a trademark violation?
  • paradaux 3y ago
    Another, related, issue would be the existence of two authors with the same name who both publish under their birth names. I don't see how they could be a 'trade mark' so to speak unless there was an intent to commit identity theft which would be a separate issue (which appears to be the case here)
    • colechristensen 3y ago
      It appears as though you can trademark your own personal name only if you are using it to identify a service or product, not just in association with your artistic creations. >Similarly, personal names (actual names and pseudonyms) of individuals or groups function as marks only if they identify and distinguish the services recited and not merely the individual or group. In re Mancino, 219 USPQ 1047 (TTAB 1983) (holding that BOOM BOOM would be viewed by the public solely as applicant’s professional boxing nickname and not as an identifier of the service of conducting professional boxing exhibitions); In re Lee Trevino Enters., 182 USPQ 253 (TTAB 1974) (LEE TREVINO used merely to identify a famous professional golfer rather than as a mark to identify and distinguish any services rendered by him); In re Generation Gap Prods., Inc., 170 USPQ 423 (TTAB 1971) (GORDON ROSE used only to identify a particular individual and not as a service mark to identify the services of a singing group). The name of a character or person is registrable as a service mark if the record shows that it is used in a manner that would be perceived by purchasers as identifying the services in addition to the character or person. In re Fla. Cypress Gardens Inc., 208 USPQ 288 (TTAB 1980) (name CORKY THE CLOWN used on handbills found to function as a mark to identify live performances by a clown, where the mark was used to identify not just the character but also the act or entertainment service performed by the character); In re Carson, 197 USPQ 554 (TTAB 1977) (individual’s name held to function as mark, where specimen showed use of the name in conjunction with a reference to services and information as to the location and times of performances, costs of tickets, and places where tickets could be purchased); In re Ames, 160 USPQ 214 (TTAB 1968) (name of musical group functions as mark, where name was used on advertisements that prominently featured a photograph of the group and gave the name, address, and telephone number of the group’s booking agent); In re Folk, 160 USPQ 213 (TTAB 1968) (THE LOLLIPOP PRINCESS functions as a service mark for entertainment services, namely, telling children’s stories by radio broadcasting and personal appearances).
• dvt 3y ago
  It's actually a bit weird how your name gets auto-tagged (even without your consent!) on Amazon. First noticed this when my name showed up[1] (not fraudulently, in this case); but very strange for an author link/page (especially a living one) to be unilaterally created. Sadly, Amazon probably doesn't care and actual working authors will have to deal with this constantly. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Meteor-Josh-Robinson/dp/1430268360/ https://www.amazon.com/Introducing-Meteor-Josh-Robinson/dp/1...
• perihelions 3y ago
  I'm confused why these "how to game Amazon e-books" e-books chose to impersonate a real person at all, and particularly someone very likely to notice and complain. This feels very on-the-nose.
  • resolutebat 3y ago
    Because you'll get a lot more hits registering your fake books under JK Rowling or Stephen King.
  • mcdonje 3y ago
    She appears to write a lot of books about writing and publishing as opposed to novels. I'm guessing that's why her name was attractive; They were targeting the self-help market. Judging by the number of grifters in that space already, it seems logical.
• crtified 3y ago
  It's interesting as a lifetime low socioeconomic person, for whom (almost) the entire modern paradigm of social media and major web corporations are, and always have been, both socially and financially unaffordable. I watch on from the outside, researching, reading and watching as I please (and yes, that means I am some kind of perma-pirate, I guess*), and all this kind of crap - waves hand in general direction of FAANG and co, and all the shit they've evolved society into, over the past 20 years - is Someone Else's Problem. That Someone, being mainstream society, apparently. Well, some people say "vote with your wallet" - I say, vote with your lifestyle. * don't get me wrong - I am happy to ethically self-justify, in terms of my lifetime holistic net inputs and outputs. And how many of us enjoy, for example, a video game emulation romset? - if so, then you're no different.
  • rdiddly 3y ago
    Having been more or less "over it" from very early on, I can definitely see that tempest-in-a-teacup factor, not to mention feel the hollowness of all the articles about how "we" live "our whole lives" online and that's why this or that is sooo important. Close the laptop and it all goes away, in some respect. Though there are cracks in it... for example it becomes a real problem when it's harder to get your local government's attention by engaging their own communication protocols than it is hail them or shame them on Twitter... which requires entering into relationships with at least 2 maybe 3 private companies that maybe I don't want relationships with, or have the money to do so. And of course there's the general and widespread degradation of decorum and social cohesion, though this too is mostly confined to online. It's when people start to have the nerve to act like that in public, in person, that it, again, becomes a real problem. Already nobody was in charge, but now there's really nobody in charge.
  • QuantumG 3y ago
    Smug dropout is smug.
    • crtified 3y ago
      I was aiming, albeit rather belatedly, for kinship, rather than smugness. But being socially ineffective = sometimes missing the mark, when it comes to conveying feelings, despite best efforts or intentions. I'll take your read under advisement. :)
• tjpnz 3y ago
  Who on earth would buy a book written by ChatGPT from Amazon? Unless they thought they weren't.
  • david422 3y ago
    I went looking for childrens books. Some titles looked good. But if you view the preview .... complete trash. Must cost nothing to upload, and you might get some suckers that don't realize.
    • tjpnz 3y ago
      >you might get some suckers that don't realize. Exactly my thought. There's an element of fraud here.
    • ThrustVectoring 3y ago
      Part of the issue is print-on-demand and drop shipping. In the old days, you had to stock and distribute inventory as well as do large-batch printing runs in order to get books out at a price and delay acceptable to consumers. This is in short why publishers exist - to identify potential quality products and take on the financial risk of generating an inventory to sell. The modern structure pioneered by Amazon removes all that. The actual cost for a seller to make a listing is apparently half a cent per month. After the first 100,000 listings, that is, and only on SKUs without a sale in the last year.
  • selcuka 3y ago
    If it looks like it was written by a known author, you may not suspect anything until you read it.
• projectileboy 3y ago
  Haha… Amazon, you say? You mean the large money laundering operation, putting third party counterfeit goods in the same warehouse bins as legitimate goods from legitimate suppliers, so that as a consumer you never know if you’re going to get counterfeit goods? Yes, that’s the Amazon we know and love.
  • maximinus_thrax 3y ago
    It's amazing how many people aren't aware of this. This should be way more publicized. I was talking to a business partner a while back and mentioned I'm not using Amazon and they were shocked. When I listed all my reasons and this one came up, they didn't believe me and we stopped talking until they looked it up online and were convinced. They were using Amazon to order all supplements and it stopped then and there.
    • herpdyderp 3y ago
      I bought a simple Apple charging cord on Amazon once. I clearly did not get an actual Apple product as it introduced severe buzzing to the computer’s audio output. Even tried several return-replacements. Same issues. No issues direct from the Apple Store.
    • Tao3300 3y ago
      > we stopped talking until they looked it up online and were convinced. So what did they see that finally convinced them?
      • brewdad 3y ago
        It’s such a ridiculous idea that most people think it can’t possibly be true. Until they find out it is.
        • Tao3300 3y ago
          So what do they see that finally convinces them?
• tornato7 3y ago
  Just some of the problems authors already faced online (I'm related to one): - Google indexing and republishing all of their work for free on Google Books (finally resolved after a huge Class Action suit where the authors were awarded a few $$) - List your book on Amazon for $20 and a "third party" reseller will immediately hijack your listing with a poorly printed knockoff copy for $19 - Widespread piracy of Kindle and other e-Books - Not being paid fairly from programs like Amazon's Kindle Unlimited Now AI-generated content makes these problems considerably worse. It's very difficult to make money writing books these days.
  • WalterBright 3y ago
    > It's very difficult to make money writing books these days That's been true as long as the printing press existed. I know many authors, and none of them make money worth spit.
    • memefrog 3y ago
      I used to be difficult to make money writing books because it was difficult to write a good book that people wanted to buy. Now it's also made even more difficult by rampant fraud. That's not the same sort of thing at all.
  • WalterBright 3y ago
    > finally resolved after a huge Class Action suit where the authors were awarded a few $$ One wonders if that few $$ was worth the bother for the authors. Especially when set against the free marketing that such exposure would get for them. There are other reasons for writing books than making money selling them, such as enhancing your professional reputation, which can segue into a better paying job, more contract opportunities, ability to sell seminars, etc. I have no idea how much Carrie Fisher made selling her books, but she did make a lot of money from a touring stage show based on the books, and also had a lucrative career as a "script doctor" in Hollywood that rescued boring and trite scripts. And, of course, having book signings!
    • 3y ago
• KennyBlanken 3y ago
  > I did file a report with Amazon, complaining that these books were using my name and reputation without my consent. Amazon’s response: “Please provide us with any trademark registration numbers that relate to your claim.” When I replied that I did not have a trademark for my name, they closed the case and said the books would not be removed from sale. This seems like textbook unauthorized commercial use of likeness, where both the "author" and (now that they've been informed and refused to act - and their business processes don't even appear to allow them to recognize unauthorized commercial use of likeness) Amazon are involved. Next step should be your lawyer sending Amazon legal department a polite "stop fucking doing that right now and take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again now that I've brought this to your attention" piece of snailmail. I'd suggest authors pile together with other authors in their state/country to hire a PR person or lawyer to draft letters specific to their region. For extra giggles, have everyone send their demand letters to arrive in the same few days. Here's a protip, folks: Customer service reps are paid a fraction of what corporate lawyers are, are shielded by phone systems designed to make you waste your time / go away, and they have no obligation to respond or follow up to you. They're literally a "go away" droid army for the corporation. Chances are the corporate legal folks are paid at least as much as you are, likely a lot more. And when you send them something, someone pretty much has* to read it. And if the letter ends with something along the lines of "I'd like to try to work this out without resorting to legal action", they've got to send at least some sort of response. Otherwise, you can file suit and say "gee judge, we tried to resolve this but they wouldn't even answer us"...and now they're already on the wrong foot with the judge for ignoring you, because judges really want people to at least attempt to work shit out before coming to court. If you make an honest effort trying to resolve something (documenting all the way), stop wasting your time and hire a lawyer, or send the letter yourself. You merely need to be polite, state the problem and how you were harmed/damaged, and say something about desiring to resolve things without legal action. * to head something off at the pass: yeah, it's probably a legal assistant or paralegal, not full blown counsel, at least in the early stages; still paid a lot more than a phone support droid. Also, the corporate lawyers might be an outside firm, and said firm might be getting paid a fixed contract price. You might not be running up the bill for BigCo, but every bit of BigFirmCo's time that you use, that's less profit for them, and increases the chances BigCo's contract goes up next year, or they get dropped as a client.
• photonpsd 3y ago
  Instead of "working" with Amazon to get one of these books removed (sounds super fun), here's a solution I could help an author implement: attach an NFT to each "official" book sold. Either at payment (for digital copies; might require marketplace buy-in) and/or via an NFC in the book binding. Use the token/NFC as a means of authentication, and a way connect with the author, other fans, etc.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    How would that stop people from getting ripped off by fakes?
    • photonpsd 3y ago
      fakes wouldn't come with a token that verifies the book is authentic. They are doing the same thing with luxury watches and fashion items. i.e. the real Gucci purse comes with an NFT, (likely NFT + NFC) for authentication and coms with the brand.
      • post-it 3y ago
        How would anyone know to look for an NFT on the fake? The target of the scammers is someone browsing Amazon, who isn't going to know to look for an NFT. Someone familiar with the author is just going to check the author's website and see the list of books they've published.
        • scrum-treats 3y ago
          The NFT/NFC is locked so the tag is immutable, and only the seller and Amazon have the public key. Barring some hack on the NFT/NFC tagging software (which could happen in theory), you'd need both the private and public key to create a counterfeit object, along with a MFA token of some sort (e.g., biometric data, another OTP like Yubikey). And this would be true for every physical and/or digital print.
• nomat 3y ago
  I think this is the future of computers for people. they will open their phone and say "hey siri get this book or computer or car" and the browser will show them a bunch of made up products generated by an AI and they'll get the product drop shipped from china and it'll be a shitty counterfeit just like the $5 256GB USB drives. But they won't know because when you look for reviews, the review websites will also be generated just for you, filled with AI-made reviews and users. The entire internet will just be a computer that guesses what you want and shows you its best guess as the truth. a little matrix-y. Reading back I sound like T*d K but the next 100 years is going to be unimaginable in terms of what silicon is going to be able to do. It doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough most of the time. Like a mcdonalds drive thru.
  • spicyusername 3y ago
    I think people have a lower tolerance for this than that, and will just go back to relying on personal recommendations and other reliable forms of curation.
    • brianmcc 3y ago
      Yep. Case in point - I've given up buying on Amazon UK and use Argos as my go-to shop instead, for products of far better assured provenance without having to really overthink it all.
    • citizenpaul 3y ago
      I think we will see the pendulum swing back. Yahoo lost to google because they were a manually curated search engine and could not keep up with google indexing and search. Now that all search is SEO gamed garbagebwe are going to see a new curated search engine rise in market share again
      • vbezhenar 3y ago
        I'm pretty sure that Google uses human adjustments for their search results.
• pyrophane 3y ago
  We are already in the world of AI-assisted fraud, and we are starting to see it all around us. Companies like Amazon are going to have to figure out how they want to approach this sort of thing, because it will hurt the trust people have in them. I worry that they see selling creative content as little different than selling a USB-powered table fan.
  • wackget 3y ago
    Funny you should mention USB products, because there's tons of bogus products with "USB certification" and/or half-assed USB interfaces which barely match any of the USB specs.
• renewiltord 3y ago
  The books do not appear to be by the same author and it appears Amazon is correctly handling this: - Book by her https://www.amazon.com/Business-Chicago-Writing-Editing-Publishing-ebook/dp/B07B9MB32X/ https://www.amazon.com/Business-Chicago-Writing-Editing-Publ... links to her Author profile https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Friedman/e/B004KHXQ0U/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1 https://www.amazon.com/Jane-Friedman/e/B004KHXQ0U/ref=dp_byl... - Book by other person with same name https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CD8YW4PQ https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0CD8YW4PQ links to no Author profile and instead to a search for that name Two people are allowed to have the same name and unless one of them trademarks it, I would expect Amazon to do something like this. After all, J K Rowling isn't her name either, and it could just as well be a name I picked. What makes it hers exclusively to use for this purpose is that she trademarked it. Otherwise, I could also have the pen name J K Rowling.
• morkalork 3y ago
  Can't trust reviews on google maps, glassdoor, amazon, or trip advisor. Can't trust products fulfilled by Amazon or any site with a 3rd party market integrated (Walmart does this too). Can't trust that new book by an author you like and buy is actually written by them and not a scammer. Can't trust nothin' anymore!
  • brewdad 3y ago
    AFAIK, Walmart doesn’t commingle inventory though. As long as I make sure the seller is Walmart and not a third party, I can trust their supply chain.
    • memcg 3y ago
      I wondered about this. Searching for products that I can pick up locally is difficult on Walmart, Target, Lowes, HomeDepot websites. I should be able to limit search to stores nearby and avoid third party and shipped options.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• __mharrison__ 3y ago
  This is so annoying. I've written multiple books and seen many types of piracy. The most annoying is piracy that Amazon could prevent with the work of an intern. They've shown little interest in this. Authors have little pull because Amazon is the only player for book selling. (I know there are other places to sell books, I've used them. Better to focus on Amazon for passive sales.)
  • QuantumG 3y ago
    > The most annoying is piracy that Amazon could prevent with the work of an intern. Do tell. In the gigantic ocean that is Amazon's marketplace, what do you suppose a single intern could do that would not be immediately circumvented?
    • __mharrison__ 3y ago
      Check to see if the name of the person uploading the book matches the author.
      • PopePompus 3y ago
        At 100 Hz.
      • mdp2021 3y ago
        Downvoters need to explain the downvote. It seems more complicated than that - Publishers (representing more authors), pseudonyms (and pluri-pseudonyms) etc. - but not dramatically so. A battery of people (human level intelligence) will check to validate the "upload" process, and automation aided. Already now: what checks that John is not selling Jack's work? The mechanism is similar.
• fractallyte 3y ago
  Books are published - either by a publisher, or by the author. That's the equivalent of a 'checksum'. The author should be able to provide to Amazon/Goodreads a list of publishers for their book. Any publisher not on this list should be prevented from selling the title. If someone wants to impersonate an author, they'd have to also impersonate a publisher - a much bigger legal risk. Simple solution.
  • coliveira 3y ago
    For many self published authors there is just one publisher: Amazon itself.
    • fractallyte 3y ago
      Perfect! So Amazon would be encouraged to police itself, which benefits everyone.
      • coliveira 3y ago
        Not really: unlike traditional publishers, Amazon presents itself as just a printing on demand service. They don't have any objective in policing users of their service.
• barbazoo 3y ago
  > Customer Obsession > Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.
  • scrum-treats 3y ago
    In the last 3 years it's been obsessing over how to better exploit customers. As a result, there's no innovative solutions happening, and whatever is being pushed is sloppily executed and filled with vulnerabilities. It is quite disheartening and unrewarding to experience, as no matter what you do (1, 2, 4, 6 pagers proposing interventions; escalations) it has no impact. People in power have made up their minds to break everything (whether they know it or not), and so it is.
• muzani 3y ago
  If you can't beat them, join them. My pen name is now Tim Ferris, look forward to my upcoming books to be published in 2024: The 4-Hour Nap, The 4-Hour Romance, The 4-Hour Deep Work
  • brewdad 3y ago
    Hi Tim. You can call me Stephen King. My latest books, Care-E and CooJoe will be out this fall. I.T. Should be available by next spring.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
  • randycupertino 3y ago
    I'll take one 4-Hour PhD please!
• Nevermark 3y ago
  A textbook I coauthored was translated into Chinese, Korean, and some other languages and published. Without any contract or compensation for me and my co-authors. We were delighted! :)
  • thisismyhna 3y ago
    Would add that to my resume, "Authored textbook available in these languages..."
• VincentEvans 3y ago
  Let me tell you how to buy a kindle book for my kid’s Kindle that is connected via a child account in “Amazon Household” to my Amazon account. (This opening sentence already signals how the rest of this will go). A child’s account can’t buy books - you have to do it for them. 1. I open Amazon app on my iphone and find the book - “This app does not support purchasing of this content”. 2. I open Kindle app on my iphone and find the book there - “This app does not support purchasing of this content”. 3. Turns out - you can only buy a book by opening a web version of Amazon in Safari on the iphone. I open up Safari, go to Amazon, dodge and dismiss repeated prompts to open the Amazon app, find the book - it says “Kindle”, it says “Available instantly”, it says “$2.99”, but there’s no “Buy” button. Instead - “The Kindle title is not currently available for purchase.” 4. I find another book, I buy it. Now I need to find how to share it with my kid. 5. I open app Kindle app on my iphone, click on the book expecting some kind of “share” - nope, nowhere I look am I able to find share functionality in the app. 6. I google “how to share your kindle book with child account”, here’s the answer I get: “ On the Amazon webpage, click “Account and Lists”, then click “Manage content and devices” in the “Digital content and devices section of the page”. On the “Digital Content” page, click “Books”. Delightful experience.
  • kelnos 3y ago
    I agree that this is ridiculous, but blame Apple and Google for wanting their 30% cut of digital goods; I think Amazon is actually right to refuse to play ball on this. Regardless, though, once you know how to do it, you only have to do two of those steps, which seems... fine?
    • dragonwriter 3y ago
      > I agree that this is ridiculous, but blame Apple and Google for wanting their 30% cut of digital goods; That only explains steps 1-2.
      • lelanthran 3y ago
        > That only explains steps 1-2. Okay, so Steps 1-2 can be explained by the closed ecosystem of the device. You don't get these hurdles if your device is not closed-off. Step 3 can be explained by the retailer of that good complying with international IP laws. Step 4 is just step 1 for everyone else. Step 5 is a legitimate WTF moment. Step 6 is once again the result of avoiding the open ecosystem (the web). Of those 6 steps that the GP complained about: 1. 3 of them are self-inflicted because of his choice of device and usage, 2. 1 is due to legal issues, 3. 1 is not a valid complaint, 4. 1 is an actual and valid complaint about the lack of a feature in the app.
• 8bitsrule 3y ago
  Amazon, Goodreads have access to a complete list of the titles, ISBN's, OCLC, publisher, etc. that can be used to verify what books were created by a particular author. The name (pseudonym perhaps) is only one element in the readily-verifiable chain of her career and an effed-up excuse for plugging ears to her complaint. Just one more reason to stay away from these online robber barons.
• Nition 3y ago
  The other day there was a thread here about the Earthsea books where some people posted their favourite quotes from the series. I saw that one of the quotes wasn't actually from the series and asked the user if they'd actually used an LLM to generate it. They confirmed that they had. It would have been easy to miss that it wasn't real. Eventually their comments got flagged (not by me) and hidden, but probably only due to me calling it out. It does make me a little concerned about the future.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• abeppu 3y ago
  Having never heard of this person, I clicked through to their author page which has apparently only the books she actually wrote. They're all books about writing books: "The Business of Being a Writer", "Publishing 101", "Beginning Writers Answer Book". Oddly, also on that page is "Author In Progress: A No-Holds-Barred Guide to What It Really Takes to Get Published", but the page for that book (and image of its cover) do not mention her. I see no indication that she's written a well-reviewed non-fiction book, or a moving memoir, or a slim volume of poetry. She publishes only on how to get published, which seems like a close cousin of people who offer drop-shipping classes and get their revenue through those classes rather than the drop-shipping that's supposed to be their expertise. I think the thing she's really annoyed with is that apparently AIs are demonstrating that these days it's really easy to get published and perhaps her books aren't necessary.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• nologic01 3y ago
  Every society and every period struggles with the class of behaviors we call "theft" and the big tech era is no different. The wide-open possibilities of a new technological domain are celebrated and given wide berth to "protect innovation", which openly invites abuse. Abuse expands with successive waves of breaching trust. There are still some traditional strongholds left, like medical and financial matters, but the crypto "industry" shows how close we are. The downward spiral continues until society pushes back really hard. Creating legal and moral fences against the new form of theft. This may or may not be a satisfactory solution (institutionalized theft is a thing) but is more stable. What creates some hope is that despite the latent dehumanizing streak, we mostly derive fulfillment from interactions with other humans. In a sense the advent of infinite verbatim copying possibilities (the zero marginal cost of reproduction) is now with algorithms expanded to a cloud of infinite near-verbatim copies. A new balance will be found. To the degree we can help it it should not be a form of institutionalized theft.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• ggm 3y ago
  Many of us would pay authors more than their licensed take from the digital publisher, if there was an honesty box. it's low cents in the dollar for almost everyone from kindle. I know an authors agent and they told me negotiating with the majors in digital publishing is a nightmare. They all miss the old world of paper a LOT. Patreon and like says to me that direct connect is a strong tool in the right hands. Bands know this: the merch thing is huge. Not everyone can be Taylor swift making $mil per stadium. Again, the digital plays don't make the money, like for kindle its small cents per thousand plays, if you are lucky. I went to tidal over the others because I'm told its at least partly owned by musicians. I am sure its big sharks feeding of smaller sharks, but at least its fish.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• ChoHag 3y ago
  [dead]
• dschuetz 3y ago
  When do we start crypto-signing original content? If big-tech does DRM to go against piracy, why won't creative commons at least try to do the same, as for the sake of origin attribution?
• pangolin_lawyer 3y ago
  I see this as an opportunity to do some real good using the names of conservative authors. Why Climate Change is Real by Ben Shapiro. Slavery Was Wrong by Tucker Carlson. Women Should Have Reproductive Rights by Ann Coulter.
• qwerty456127 3y ago
  Almost all good things (books, software, music, movies) get pirated. If nobody pirates yours (even as time passes) this is a very negative signal - chances are nobody wants it and nobody finds it worth sharing (or almost nobody just knows it exists). And the pirates mostly are people who would never buy anyway so this is not really a material loss. Some of them even pay once they find the book worth it and once their budget permits. I tend to buy paperback copies of books I have found online and actually read, and I have hard time resisting temptation to share books I've bought digitally as great books feel like they would make the world a better place if more people would read them :-)
• Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  > Garbage books getting uploaded to Amazon where my name is credited as the author. This is an issue with a lot of sites and services nowadays; I get tons of recommendations on auto-generated Spotify lists (discover weekly, release radar) where someone just attaches $artist as one of the co-artists of their own mediocre hip-hop track. Maybe they use a sample from $artist, I don't know for sure, but I've gathered that it's a known trick to promote your own music on there and get /some/ listens at least, probably mostly accidental. I wouldn't be surprised if some of those now are or will be AI generated, in a way so that it kinda sounds like $artist but isn't, and that legally it falls under "inspired by" or "a cover".
• sbr464 3y ago
  This issue is going to get worse once we are a multi-planetary species.
• pm3003 3y ago
  Does anyone here use bookwyrm?
• jimnotgym 3y ago
  It is interesting that this is giving an advantage back to smaller more curated sites and physical shops. Amazon and Co are going to get AI'd to death.
• AntonCTO 3y ago
  To be honest, the stakes are very high. I would register a trademark for my name in that situation.
• DrScientist 3y ago
  I think this is yet another sign that a lot of the big tech companies business models don't actually scale like they thought. There was a golden window, before the scammers caught up, when you could trust things not checked by humans ( whether that be news stories, social media posts or goods for sale ) - and that window appears to be closing. If they lose trust - they are dead. The question is how much will maintaining that trust cost - and will they be able to keep their advantage over traditional retailers? I'm not sure AI systems is the answer - you just end up in a never ending AI war between scammer and checker. In the end, they may find they need the human handshake.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• carlosjobim 3y ago
  I've come to the conclusion that pirates will be the greatest weapon against AI spam content, especially when it comes to books, movies and music. Commercial interests like Amazon or other sellers will never filter out AI content if they can make money from it. Likewise social media and other ad sellers will never filter out AI content if it can grab attention for ads. The only people who have no motivation to let AI content through are pirates, because they share content at a cost and at a risk.
• hammertek 3y ago
  Whilst I agree that the flood of AI generated crap is frustrating...I kinda see it as people finding their feet with a new technology. As with all previous technological jumps we've got people that hate it and dont see the point in it. I wasn't there when the microwave was unleashed on the world, but I'd imagine a lot of chefs thought it was the fucking rapture. Fast forward to today and even top chefs use a microwave occasionally. I suspect the same will occur with AI. Hated by pros right now because every man and dog is now able to do things they couldn't before...eventually though AI will probably become a crucial part of a writers toolkit and along with their existing talent, they will ultimately create better content for people to consume, while the garbage generating will slow down as the cream rises to the top again....some writers will staunchly be against AI forever, some writers will appear that otherwise would never have been writers if not for AI...and the rest will adapt.
• Paul_S 3y ago
  I would rather have your books done this to them (whatever the "this" is) than have a popup jump up at the me after reading 10 lines before I can even figure out what you're complaining about. And I already have ublock origin enabled so congrats on defeating its filters.
• neycoda 3y ago
  Amazon didn't name their e-reader "Kindle" randomly.
• Matteo82 3y ago
  [dead]
• EthanWillam 3y ago
  [dead]
• camilamacedo 3y ago
  [dead]
• YeBanKo 3y ago
  It falls into an “identity fraud” bucket. When vendors mistake knowledge of information for message authentication. In a more typical scenario, a piece of knowledge maybe a name, an address and ssn and a message is a request for a loan from the bank. In this case a piece of knowledge is the name only, and the unauthenticated message is an AI gibberish.