A few days ago, author and journalist Jane Fredman took to her Twitter handle to announce how Amazon refused to take down books that are apparently not written by her (although it was published under her name) because she did not have the trademark to her own name.
Now, Amazon has taken the action, and the “garbage books” are disappearing from Amazon’s website.
‘We have clear content guidelines governing which books can be listed for sale and promptly investigate any book when a concern is raised. We welcome author feedback and work directly with authors to address any issues they raise and where we have made an error, we correct it. We invest heavily to provide a trustworthy shopping experience and protect customers and authors from misuse of our service.’
– Ashley Vanicek, Amazon spokesperson
Jane Fredman has been cherished by aspiring writers for her role in helping them understand the business they are entering. She has written many books like “The Business of Being a Writer” and ” Publishing 101″, helping her get an extensive following.
However, lately, she noticed how there have been similar write-ups under her name, which she did not write. The author for the books is some other Jade Fredman, although their books were listed under the “same related results” of Fredman’s real book “The Business of Being a Writer”.
She also mentioned on her Twitter how these books seem to be generated by “some huckster” using AI. When Fredman reached Amazon with the problem, she was told that the books couldn’t be removed as per the information she 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.” her Twitter post read.
On her official website, Fredman wrote a post where she talked about the whole matter and how leading platforms like Amazon and Goodreads are becoming a dumpster fire.
“We desperately need guardrails on this landslide of misattribution and misinformation,” she wrote in her post. She also requested both platforms to “create a way to verify authorship, or for authors to easily block fraudulent books credited to them.”
While AI has been of great use to people in general, its misuse has been lately becoming too common in the publishing industry. What do you think?
Navkiran Dhaliwal is a seasoned content writer with 10+ years of experience. When she's not writing, she can be found cooking up a storm or spending time with her dog, Rain.
