Amazon Is the World’s Biggest Online Book Marketplace. It’s Filled With AI Knockoffs

WashWest · 12-11-2025, 10:52 AM

The information in this Rolling Stone story may be familiar to many, but I thought it was a good overview of the issue of AI slop and authors' frustration with Amazon's tepid response.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture...fs-1235450690/

Quote:

“My frustration is that this piracy isn’t being done as a marginal thing,” [Seth] Harp says. “This is coming from the most well connected and elite sector of our economy. It’s just crazy to me to see this engine for intellectual property theft that is totally indefensible taking place with the full cooperation of Amazon.”

DNSB · 12-11-2025, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WashWest

The information in this Rolling Stone story may be familiar to many, but I thought it was a good overview of the issue of AI slop and authors' frustration with Amazon's tepid response.

As long as Amazon is making money of selling AI knockoffs, it's doubtful that anything will change. Author complains, knockoff gets removed. Next version of the knockoff is published. Wash, rinse, repeat. Could Amazon do more? Almost certainly. Will they? Very unlikely.

DiapDealer · 12-11-2025, 06:58 PM

Right or wrong, it has always been the rightsholder's responsibility to ensure their rights are not being infringed upon. There are no copyright police available who are going to proactively protect their interests for them. Until that changes, all any ebook retailer has to do is prove they don't ignore officially filed takedown notices.

I'm not endorsing the current system, but it's not hard to imagine the slippery slope tilting quickly the other way if other's became saddled with the responsibility to proactively guard the copyright of others.

haertig · 12-11-2025, 10:45 PM

Amazon climbed the hill to become top dog in the retail world. Now they're sliding down the backside of that hill, as inevitably happens to every "king of the hill". The problem described in this thread may be bad now. But it's on its way to self correction. Soon enough, people will start choosing to get their eBooks from places other than Amazon. That's already started for many (some of the people on this forum are a good example), but as time goes on even the ignorant masses will start deciding that they should go elsewhere.

The king has already maxed out and is in decline. Some have noticed this, others have yet to. It's not going to be quick with such a large king however.

SteveEisenberg · 12-11-2025, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by haertig

The king has already maxed out and is in decline. Some have noticed this, others have yet to.

I'm among the "have yet to."

Their employee count looks steady for the past five years.

What convinced you that Amazon is in decline?

DNSB · 12-12-2025, 01:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I'm among the "have yet to."

Their employee count looks steady for the past five years.

What convinced you that Amazon is in decline?

Perhaps the announcement made in October that Amazon was laying off 14,000 employees as part of a planned 30,000 employee reduction? This was a followup to the reduction of 27,000 employees in 2022-2023.

Yes, Amazon has hired a lot of seasonal employees but those are going to gone in a short while.

haertig · 12-12-2025, 02:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

What convinced you that Amazon is in decline?

The fact that they are now selling an overabundance of highly questionable stuff. Like products offered from companies with names like QHTZNNDR and PYTTHSWVXX. Like "restaurant quality Stainless Steel" items that come out of the delivery box all rusted. Like book rip-offs written by AI.

They are in "product decline" IMHO, but probably not "financial decline" just yet. But that will come eventually (it will take a while). For the customers trying to buy product, if their experiences are like mine, there are a ton of choices to pick from, more now than ever before - but a lot of them are pure junk. You really have to watch what you are ordering. You can't trust the product descriptions presented - they are just not honest in a lot of cases. Is this widget I'm looking at - claimed to be Mil-Spec titanium (whatever that is) that has a price of $2.49 REALLY titanium? Ha! It's probably the lowest grade pot metal they could source from Vietnam. But Amazon evidently has zero qualms allowing them to advertise it as titanium. Product decline. Buying from Amazon is getting to be like buying from AliExpress.

nana77 · 12-12-2025, 03:11 AM

Time ago there was some trend about an Operating System to run old vintage games; I was looking at videos about, and there were huge collections, for Playstation 1 and 2, Xbox, and older consoles too. Game collections were in order of thousands, and some talks were about preserving them, as some copyrights won't allow it, and there are no places were to buy those videogames.
I was surprised that, as like some youtubers put torrents to download the packages, there were several already on Amazon, plug-and-play ready, on hard disk like 500 GB or 1 TB.
It wasn't no noticeable, and probably Amazon seemed to allow something good, apart that it wasn't legal: I wonder how easily it would have been possible that someone might even had corrupted some ROMs, I mean trusting it's not about a bet.
Slightly OT but, about policies, that's it I guess.

theducks · Yesterday, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DNSB

Perhaps the announcement made in October that Amazon was laying off 14,000 employees as part of a planned 30,000 employee reduction? This was a followup to the reduction of 27,000 employees in 2022-2023.

Yes, Amazon has hired a lot of seasonal employees but those are going to gone in a short while.

'Amazon employees ' may encompass owned companies as well as the warehouses.
I have done work at a number of Silicon Valley sites that were Amazon owned, But had the company name, Not Amazon on the building/door.

They no longer have the top slots on some tech that they used to.

Renate · Yesterday, 02:18 PM

Capture a market and then be as arbitrary as you wish.

ebay pretty much swallowed the entire used/collector market.
Undoubtedly there is a lot of fraud and scams on it.
But to be banned permanently, without a reason given and without recourse if you have never been a seller?

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12-11-2025, 06:58 PM	#3
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 28,967 Karma: 208562526 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	Right or wrong, it has always been the rightsholder's responsibility to ensure their rights are not being infringed upon. There are no copyright police available who are going to proactively protect their interests for them. Until that changes, all any ebook retailer has to do is prove they don't ignore officially filed takedown notices. I'm not endorsing the current system, but it's not hard to imagine the slippery slope tilting quickly the other way if other's became saddled with the responsibility to proactively guard the copyright of others.

12-11-2025, 10:45 PM	#4
haertig Wizard Posts: 1,947 Karma: 35129488 Join Date: Sep 2017 Device: PW3, Galaxy Tab A9+, Moto G7	Amazon climbed the hill to become top dog in the retail world. Now they're sliding down the backside of that hill, as inevitably happens to every "king of the hill". The problem described in this thread may be bad now. But it's on its way to self correction. Soon enough, people will start choosing to get their eBooks from places other than Amazon. That's already started for many (some of the people on this forum are a good example), but as time goes on even the ignorant masses will start deciding that they should go elsewhere. The king has already maxed out and is in decline. Some have noticed this, others have yet to. It's not going to be quick with such a large king however.

12-12-2025, 03:11 AM	#8
nana77 Wizard Posts: 1,095 Karma: 860474 Join Date: May 2025 Device: Kobo Forma	Time ago there was some trend about an Operating System to run old vintage games; I was looking at videos about, and there were huge collections, for Playstation 1 and 2, Xbox, and older consoles too. Game collections were in order of thousands, and some talks were about preserving them, as some copyrights won't allow it, and there are no places were to buy those videogames. I was surprised that, as like some youtubers put torrents to download the packages, there were several already on Amazon, plug-and-play ready, on hard disk like 500 GB or 1 TB. It wasn't no noticeable, and probably Amazon seemed to allow something good, apart that it wasn't legal: I wonder how easily it would have been possible that someone might even had corrupted some ROMs, I mean trusting it's not about a bet. Slightly OT but, about policies, that's it I guess.

Yesterday, 02:18 PM	#10
Renate Onyx-maniac Posts: 4,176 Karma: 19000001 Join Date: Feb 2012 Device: Nook NST, Glow2, 3, 4, '21, Kobo Aura2, Poke3, Poke5, Go6	Capture a market and then be as arbitrary as you wish. ebay pretty much swallowed the entire used/collector market. Undoubtedly there is a lot of fraud and scams on it. But to be banned permanently, without a reason given and without recourse if you have never been a seller?