Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

I haven't seen this happen with many books, but this example is so egregious that I figured it was worth making a thread.

Earlier this summer, the book The Fort Bragg Cartel by Seth Harp came out. It's a nonfiction book about the long history of crimes, some of them violent, at a notorious US military base.

Right around the time the book came out, Amazon got flooded by garbage AI editions of grifters running Harp's book through Chatgpt or whatever in order to make crappy rip-off "summary" versions of the book. All of them are on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=th...

Is there any kind of policy on how to deal with garbage like this being churned out and flooding the site? I avoid AI "literature" at all costs, but even I recognize the difference between someone using generative AI to "write" an "original" story and whatever the hell this is.

Drace wrote: "I haven't seen this happen with many books, but this example is so egregious that I figured it was worth making a thread.

Earlier this summer, the book The Fort Bragg Cartel by Seth Harp came out...."

Hi Drace
AFAIK there is no policy regarding AI. You could try putting Attn Jaclyn in the heading of your thread.

Done.

For the record, as much distaste as I have for AI-generated art of any kind, I do think one could make a case for AI-generated fiction or whatever to have entries on the site (although I certainly won't be the one making it). It is probably pretty bad and I doubt anyone actually goes out of their way to read it, but fine, whatever. This instance is a case where people are creating AI-generated books with the specific purpose of ripping off an author with a new book out and trying to trick people into buying their garbage, so I wonder if there would be a different way to approach it.

Yikes. Doesn't that constitute copyright violation?

Michele wrote: "Yikes. Doesn't that constitute copyright violation?"

Probably, but one author likely doesn't have the time or budget to try to hunt down and sue a bunch of completely anonymous randos on Amazon, and who knows if a giant megacorporation like Amazon is going to be speedy about it or even take any action at all.

There have also been even more slop books added to both Amazon and Goodreads since I made this thread, and the second result on Amazon below Harp's actual book is some random moron whose slop summary book straight-up uses the Harp book's cover with Harp's name edited out and replaced with the thief's own.

Hi all. Looking into this and I'll get back to you when I know more.

Thanks for the patience here! We're ok with leaving these titles up as they don't contravene our catalog rules.

That said, if Amazon removes these due to copyright violations or other reasons, we will do the same on Goodreads.