AI-generated books make up 20 percent of Amazon's self-published catalog but bring in only 12 percent of sales. A new study finds that revenue per book is dropping for human-written titles too, in seven of eight genres. The findings could give copyright plaintiffs the market-harm data their cases against AI companies have been missing.
  • markstos@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    3 hours ago

    How soon until Amazon buys one of each, prints them; ships them to a different warehouse, rips the pages out and scans them back in?

    • a1studmuffin@aussie.zoneEnglish
      3·
      2 hours ago

      I swear this is the real reason AI companies are concerned about watermarking - not for the public good, but so they can keep their model training inputs clean.

  • KssioAug@piefed.zipEnglish
    10·
    6 hours ago

    If I had to guess, most of these ‘books’ are some kink bullshit. Ever since I looked for the rankings in the Kindle section, it was flooded by books with men or women stripping on the cover and some random erotic titles. Among them some rare exceptions (and most of these were some cheap self-help stuff).

    That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised this is what’s being actually affected. I can’t see the actual data or content of the article though, because it requires me to subscribe and I definitely won’t.

    • T156@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      2 hours ago

      Copycats might also be an issue. I remember that when Douglas Wreden published his book, he had to deal with numerous AI-generated copycats popping up one after the other, using his name and face, trying to trick people into buying their book, because his had become popular.

    • solrize@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      3 hours ago

      I get the impression that most kindle books are sold (well rented) by subscription, i.e. all you can read for a fixed monthly fee, so a subscriber downloading an AI book or other crap doesn’t pay any increment to do so. IDK how the revenues are divided up.

      • architect@thelemmy.clubEnglish
        1·
        2 hours ago

        You don’t get paid until the reader reads x amount of pages of the book.

        I sell way way more than through that subscription bs. I removed my book from it. It keeps the author on Amazon.

  • atrielienz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    4 hours ago

    I wasn’t buying books from Amazon. I’m not gonna start now. Certainly not going to start buying AI slop “books”.

  • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.orgEnglish
    15·
    8 hours ago

    So these things are actually sold in recognizable numbers? smh

    A philosopher has once said that you should only read books that are >100 years old.

  • magnue@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    6 hours ago

    Who the hell is biting them though? I wouldn’t even think of buying a book by a human without prior research. Gifts maybe?

    • KssioAug@piefed.zipEnglish
      3·
      6 hours ago

      Exactly what I wonder. I have a list of 110 (and growing) books I want to read, all of them written by human beings, and I discover something new all the time. There’s no way I will buy a random book on Amazon, be it from AI or by some author I’ve never heard anything about.