hen journalist and author Talia Lavin first searched online for her new book, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right Is Taking Over America, she expected to find the usual things that accompany a book the week of its release: a pre-order link, the odd list, and perhaps a review or two. Instead, however, she found at least five complete plagiarisms of her work on the online shopping giant Amazon – almost all of them apparently created with the help of generative AI.
“The book is a history of the last 50 years of the Christian right, with a particular focus on family dynamics and child abuse in evangelical communities,” Lavin tells Rolling Stone. “All [Fälschungen] used the term ‘wild faith’, but some were biographies. One was an inspirational self-help book that I found funny in a dark way. It was surreal.”
The books had titles such as Talia Lavin Prosopography: You Need to Have a Wild Faith to Succeed, Talia Lavin Biography: Why You Need Wild Faith to Succeed, and Tania Lavin Biography: The Wild Faith to Take Over America – all of which had titles and paragraphs that were similar to her works but were full of spelling, factual, and grammatical errors.
A growing problem in online bookselling
This is not an isolated case. What Lavin accidentally discovered is one of the biggest problems in online bookselling right now. Amazon has become the leading self-publishing platform with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). This software allows users to upload their manuscripts and create purchasable e-books and paperbacks. According to Amazon’s marketing materials, the platform offers authors the ability to gain control over the “content, design, price, audience and promotion” of their works – all helpful tools for selling a book without a traditional publisher.
But while independent authors have used KDP to build digital publishing empires, a much bigger problem has emerged: AI-generated pirated copies of books. Published authors say these fakes are frustrating and almost impossible to stop. But as the practice thrives online, authors tell Rolling Stone that it’s not just the small financial loss that frustrates them. It’s the fact that the flood of fake books is making book sales – and the Internet – worse for everyone else.
“The problem with these pulp books isn’t just that they divert revenue that should be going into the pockets of the authors who wrote the books. The problem is that they deceive buyers,” says Cory Doctorow, author of Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It can). “These are rubbish books that exist solely to swindle money from inattentive people and defraud both readers and authors.”
How AI plagiarism occurs via Kindle Direct Publishing
The current problem of AI plagiarism seems to have its origins in the online community of KDP side earners. A quick search on TikTok reveals nearly 90,000 videos and tutorials on how to make passive income with KDP through constant AI posting.
These creators – many of whom sell their own workbooks and courses on how to exploit the KDP system – take classic literature from the public domain and use AI to add summaries and discussion questions before relisting it on the site with a new cover.
Many also use AI to design and publish simplified versions of books such as children’s books, coloring pages or cookbooks. However, AI plagiarism on Amazon goes one step further and not only uses public domain books, but also creates AI versions of new books that have just been released – ones that more people are likely to search for.
AI plagiarism operates in a legal gray area to avoid obvious copyright issues. U.S. copyright law protects “specific creative expressions” of authors at the moment they write their literary works—a protection that is then registered with the U.S. Copyright Office upon traditional publication.
However, the law also allows fair use of copyrighted material for purposes such as commentary or education. This means, for example, workbooks on the themes of a famous literary classic, or perhaps a study guide on the influences of a particular author. AI plagiarizers often use the main title of the book they are copying to make people think they are buying the original.
However, a closer look at the offers shows that many are listed as biographies, workbooks or summaries – which indicates fair use.
When contacted by Rolling Stone, an Amazon spokesperson explained that the site has content guidelines that determine which books are acceptable and that books that violate the guidelines or copyright are removed.
“We invest significant time and resources to ensure our policies are followed. When we identify titles that do not conform to these policies, we take immediate action, such as removing non-compliant books or infringing content and suspending publisher accounts to prevent repeat abuse,” they wrote.
Authors against the AI system
But some authors tell Rolling Stone that the review process isn’t rigorous enough to prevent fakes from surfacing — and that the burden of policing these violations often falls on authors.
When Seth Harp, author of The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces, first noticed people selling AI knockoffs of his book on Amazon, he immediately reported the AI knockoffs to the company. But he tells Rolling Stone that the process was ultimately “completely ineffective.”
Every time he reported a fake and it was removed, a new one would appear in its place.
“My frustration comes from the fact that this piracy is not just a fringe phenomenon,” says Harp. “It comes from the best-connected and most elite circles in our economy. I just find it crazy that this intellectual property theft machine, which is completely indefensible, is being run with the full support of Amazon.”
(Amazon, for its part, emphasizes that it tries to address the issue as it arises: “Our processes and content policies will evolve as we see changes in the AI-powered publishing space to ensure we provide the best possible experience for our customers and authors,” the spokesperson tells Rolling Stone.)
The silent power of digital theft
Lavin bought printed copies of the AI plagiarisms of her book and was not surprised to find each one unusable in its own way. Some were incredibly short and seemed to have been taken directly from her Wikipedia page as a kind of biography about her, combining public summaries or her book and available chapters as if they were about her life.
Others were full of false information, such as identifying her as a teacher. One was her book, but read as if it had been translated into another language and then translated back into English.
For Lavin, the experience was a mix of amusement and frustration. But she also worried about the systems that allowed the counterfeits to be made so easily.
“Without a doubt, I felt like I had been violated. I worked on this book for three fucking years. I talked to over 100 people about the worst child abuse they’ve ever experienced in their lives,” she says. “You spent 20 minutes typing in keywords and now you’re going to make money because all these results appear when you search for Wild Faith.”
Doctorow, the author of Enshittification, has AI plagiarized copies of his own book on Amazon. It’s an ironic situation – especially considering he’s best known for coining the term to describe how things on the internet are getting worse and more difficult for the average user.
Doctorow tells Rolling Stone that he believes the proliferation of AI plagiarism is a direct result of Amazon not investing in content moderation, and a perfect example of “enshittification” in action.
“This is the process through which you see enshittification taking place,” he says. “It’s a theory about what happens when a company no longer has to worry about the consequences of doing bad things.”
An occupational hazard for real authors
All of the authors who spoke to Rolling Stone say Amazon has a clear responsibility to invest in more software and moderation to prevent AI scam books like these from ripping off readers and authors.
As it currently stands, they feel that AI plagiarism could become an accepted occupational hazard for people who want to share their writing with others. That doesn’t change the work they put into their books. But it makes the online world harder to navigate.
“This is silent violence. They steal my work, my face. They steal my life and write lies about it,” Lavin says. “On an individual level, I’m not some kind of Joan of Arc taking revenge for a great humiliation. But taken as a whole, this is the largest book market in the world. And look how easily it can be distorted in this way.”