Kindle piracy and paraphrase-bots

Posted on by Matthew Wright

I’ve put a lifetime into writing. It’s an ongoing learning process, as all skills must be. And the financial returns are minimal when set against the scale of work required to write a book, still less the scale of the process required to obtain the skills to do so.

Lest there be any doubt, wanting to be paid for your work is neither prostitution, nor does it diminish the quality and value of the product. Writers have to eat too. Their work has value: it is something they have created by effort and skill, and what people are paying for is the emotional satisfaction that experiencing this material provides. That’s true of all the arts, be it music, writing, painting, or any abstract expression.

Which brings me to automatic paraphrasing software and the way it’s being used to steal my income. This isn’t AI, it’s an earlier mechanism, but it’s more ubiquitous and likely a harbinger of what AI will do to authors. Last year one of my books, which has been out on Kindle a while, was taken by persons unknown and (a) reissued with a new title but no other changes, (b) re-written multiple times via an automatic paraphraser such as Quillbot and republished multiple times, each with a different title, and (c) when I challenged Amazon over the copyright infringement they didn’t want to know.

Edward Teach in action. From Charles Ellms, The Pirates’ Own Book, 1837 (public domain).

I am, shall we say, quite pissed off. It’s disturbing to be targeted by thieves. It’s my material, it has value and I have a right to earn an income from it. Yet somebody has stolen it for their own benefit. Worse, the efforts I’ve made so far to deal with it have drawn a blank – Amazon don’t want to know.

I don’t know what I’ll do yet. Amazon’s the distributor, my publisher is the licensee, and I am the author, which means I’m the owner of the property that’s been stolen. By contract, a publisher must act if an author notifies them of an infringement; but in reality publishers can’t do much unless there is a good deal of money at stake. The author can act independently, and I have, from time to time, but it’s expensive.

Have you had your intellectual property ripped off this way? Let me know in the comments.

Copyright © Matthew Wright 2024

29 thoughts on “Kindle piracy and paraphrase-bots”

  1. Yes, I have had at least one book that I know of republished in different languages and sold on different servers in other countries where copyright has no jurisdiction. I didn’t know about paraphrase bots. Just great…

    Liked by 1 person

    2. The worst of it is that even if legal pressure could be applied, it probably wouldn’t stop those doing it – they’d pop up somewhere else. I expect it’s organised like those scam click-farms.

      Liked by 1 person

  2. This is unforgivable on the part of Amazon. May I suggest that you engage with newspapers in a name and shame campaign? Also, if you share a link to the plagiarised stuff, I’ll engage directly with them. I’ve done this before.

    Lloyd Carpenter

    BSc, PGDipTchg, DipBibMin, GradDipArts(dist), BA(hons), PhD

    Ngāti Toarangatira ki Wairau, Ngāti Apa Ki Te Rā Tō, Te Ātiawa o Te Waka-a-Māui

    Waea Pūkoro |

    Liked by 1 person

  3. I can only see this problem getting worse, especially now AI is becoming so prevalent. I had a job interview the other day with a digital agency and the young content manager is using ChatGPT for all client copy to “boost productivity by 60%” no doubt in the name of ideational ideating.

    I pointed out to her my freelance clients have an expectation I don’t use a AI for their copy and she was baffled why they’d have a problem with it. Changing times.

    I hope you can sort the issue out, it’s really not on whatever Amazon’s vague stance is on it. But then it is Amazon. Like YouTube these days, they don’t exactly care about these things sadly.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I’m not holding my breath regarding a resolution – and if it happens once, it’ll happen again. I’d prefer not to have e-publications just now. The income from them vs a trad published book is negligible – Kindle releases are swamped by the avalanche of auto-generated and scammer rubbish filling that platform – but they are an avenue to theft of IP and to drive-by anonymous one-star reviews which drive down sales of the print edition. I don’t think there will be a solution to this or any of the other problems with the main online platforms – service and social media – until the underlying philosophy of the monolithic corporates changes. This will happen in – oh – did I just see a pig flap past my window?

      ChatGPT as a productivity booster for copywriters (or any sort of writers)? Aughaughaughaughaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggghhhhhhahahahahahahahahaha
      hahahahanoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I must admit, there’s little appeal for me as a reader in mass-produced AI novels. Innovations can be great, but I don’t think this is one of them.

        Shakespeare Bot 2.0. Macbeth: DOES NOT COMPUTE! *BZZZT*

        [Exit, pursued by a Roomba]

        Liked by 1 person

  4. I am so sorry, Matthew. Sorry that they stole your book, because that is what it is. Sorry that your publisher can’t or won’t do anything, and sorry that bloody Amazon doesn’t /care/.

    I’m with Lloyd on this. Whoever did this, did /not/ go through and manually copy your content. It was done electronically, which means that Amazon’s software has been hacked, which means that the Kindle’s security is non-existent. The more people that know about it the better.

    I’d also suggest leaving a comment on each stolen book page stating that this is a pirated copy.

    The days of doing things because they’re ‘right’ are long gone. Now it seems anything goes if you can get away with it.

    Whatever you do, I hope you make waves. I’ll reblog this post to get it out there, and I’ll ask my community to keep reblogging. Fingers crossed.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Thanks. What’s been particularly annoying has been that like all my Kindle material the book had DRM protection. Didn’t stop the piracy. I expect it’s done by a “click farm” style operation – which will only get worse with the advent of AI. What also annoys me is that Amazon don’t care. They get their cut irrespective, and it’s clear that their attention to the legal rights of the IP holders is token at best. They also make it difficult to address.

      The practical effect for me, as author and IP owner, is that I’m now asking my publishers NOT to put the book up on Kindle or other e-book format. I’ve got a new title being released in a few months that, by contract, will have a KIndle version. Other than that I’m requesting print only. It won’t impact my income: my experience has been that 99 percent of what any title earns derives from print sales. In part it’s a function of the marketing: publishers typically focus on the print side and bookshop distribution, not the online aspect – it’s seen as a bonus and a way of keeping the book permanently available. In part, though, it’s because Kindle is awash with books of all types, and the professionally published material gets lost amid the amateur self-pubbed stuff and the pirated scam material. Getting anything actually seen is extremely difficult and it’s not cost-effective either for the publisher or their authors to do so. That, too, will only get worse with AI – I have no doubt that there are now ‘factory operations’ churning out product that’s essentially auto-generated, further flooding the platform. Ouch.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Thanks Matthew. I’ll be honest and say I’ve never actually seen the trad. pub side of the equation. I can see now why so many traditional publishers stick to print books, or actively discourage ebooks but… With walk-in bookshops on the way out, surely that’s just burying their heads in the sand?
        I would have loved to have read one of your books ages ago, but I haven’t been in a bricks and mortar bookshop in decades, literally, because of the cost of print books here in Australia. I assume they’re just as expensive in NZ?
        I have to admit that my eyesight isn’t as good as it was, so I probably wouldn’t be able to read a print book these days, even with my glasses.
        Surely at some point we all have to come to terms with ebooks? They’re not going away either.
        It’s crazy that traditional publishers aren’t bringing their economic power to bear to /force/ change on the ebook retailers. And by change I mean IP protection, not silly monopoly-type demands. We’d all benefit from security that actually worked. 😦

        Liked by 1 person

    1. Amazon served several of the pirated duplicates up as suggested purchases when I looked at my own title to check on its ranking. Unbelievable! What with that and some obviously malicious ‘drive by’ one-star reviews of several of my books which had until then been consistently four and five-star – all anonymously and without comment, which unjustly affects the algorithm and damages sales – I’ve finished with Kindle as a viable outlet. As I mentioned in my other comment, I’m hoping to persuade my publishers the same.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Ouch and double ouch. Do you think it was just normal ‘maliciousness’ or something more…personal?
        And why on earth does Amazon allow a ranking without a review? Or at least a ranking without a name? That is so unfair.
        I’m almost glad I’m such an unknown. 😦

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I have to wonder about the Amazon system. They seem to allow buyers to issue a ‘star’ rating on purchase, anonymously if it’s not accompanied by commentary. Worse, I get reports showing that some Kindle purchases are refunded, which creates a system for anonymous zero-cost abuse. I have no doubt this is how the piracy occurs also. In terms of malice, books seem to get run down for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with the actual quality of the material – I even had a reader review, once, that objected to the length of the chapters because they didn’t suit that person’s reading habit, which was to complete a chapter in a sitting. However, when I see a string of my titles, all in a specific field, that have a consistent record of four and five star ratings suddenly get one-star ratings, all at once, all anonymously and without a written review, it seems pretty obvious it’s not genuine opinion, but a deliberate attempt to damage. Again, I raised this with Amazon but didn’t even get a response.

          Who might have done it isn’t clear, but one of the biggest hazards I find as a writer is that any topic I write on, inevitably, is ‘owned’ by some unknown stranger who views it as theirs alone and regards my work as an intrusion into their personal territory and a personal attack that has to be avenged. This has led to all kinds of issues over the years, mostly to do with abusive reviews from authors whose books compete with mine, strangers approaching my publishers to ‘warn’ them not to publish me on the basis of defamatory allegation about my professional integrity, and so forth – and has included being physically confronted in reading rooms by angry strangers and, in one case, spat on. I’m not alone – a colleague of mine was actually pursued out of a reading room by a stranger who openly told him to ‘keep out of my territory’. All of which speaks little for the quality of human nature.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Putting a ‘Like’ on this felt very wrong. I can’t imagine how violated that author must have felt to be physically spat on. Can people like that be charged with assault? And what on earth were the staff of the reading room doing?
            Back to the 1 star reviews. I have one, and I feel an odd fondness for it because it kind of proves that the rest of my reviews aren’t fudged. More than one though…that would be disturbing. Sometimes it pays to be an unknown. 😦

            Liked by 1 person

            1. It was me – I was the one spat on. I got backed into a corner in a reading room by a stranger who’d clearly got so angry on seeing me that he had to physically confront me. I kept backing off and he kept coming. Legally it’s assault, and it’s not the only time it’s happened to me in that environment. Dangerous places, these reading rooms.

              Like

  7. Hi Matthew, while I understand and agree with your feelings over reproduction and plagiarism, I have a personal problem with one bit of what you said “in certain circumstances”.

    Lest there be any doubt, wanting to be paid for your work is neither prostitution, nor does it diminish the quality and value of the product. Writers have to eat too.”

    When writing non-fiction, fiction, poetry, etc. I agree we need to be payed. But I truly wish that people who write about personal betterment and spiritual (non-religious) matters, writers would make their works free for everyone to read. If a writer truly thinks they csn help make this world better a better place to be, they should want their work to be availlable to everyone. Publishing houses should be a part of this. Some part of the profits they make should be reinvested into publishing books about spirituality and personal betterment as a public service.
    Maybe I’m a weirdo in our present civilization, but I would like to see an effort made to spread ideas and words that can make life better for everyone free of charge to everyone.

    Like

    1. Amazon served them up as recommended purchases when I was looking at my own title to check its ranking. Incredible! The worst of it is that I couldn’t get any support. They just don’t care, and I suppose from their perspective they get their cut either way. It’s emblematic, I think, of the way the internet has served merely to amplify the worst aspects of humanity in so many ways.

      Liked by 1 person

    1. Absolutely. Actually I think Sisyphus had an easier time – there was only one boulder! I suspect the Amazon problem, like the online scammers, the click farms etc, is driven by large numbers of organised operations set up to exploit the system, all outside the reach of US law – not that Amazon care anyway, they get their money either way from a sale.

      Liked by 1 person

  12. Here through Meeka…
    The dilution and theft of all human generated content is the eventual future. It is inevitable. Imagine ten years from today. AI will be many-fold more capable… and pervasive. No human creative endeavor will be spared. AI is the automation tsunami that will not be stopped.

    Making a living through the media creative arts will be nigh impossible.

    What to do? “Proof of Human” will become the norm. There will be rejection of AI generated products, but how to /prove/ that a work was created by a human, that will be the challenge. I suspect there will be blockchain type solutions. Limited editions. Subscriptions to Creators’ exclusive output. “You’ll pay $100 for a story, but you’ll know it was written by a human.”

    Corporations will attempt participating in this; yet when they try, their offerings will always be suspect. The trick is to get there first.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I think you’re right. What worries me is that the corporates which currently dominate both AI and social media, variously, are already positioned to monopolise the potential of AI to create ‘entertainment products’ – podcasts, books, video, music, etc. Their business model, ‘free, but let’s barrage it with advertising until you’re forced to subscribe, then crank up the subscription once you’re hooked’, will doubtless apply. It’s a worry for individual creators. I can see a return to word-of-mouth and, in effect, cottage industries.

      Liked by 1 person

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