Booksology The copyright-infringing YouTube video has been up for six months and has been viewed nearly 100,000 times. Music (and TV and film) publishers use Content ID to automatically detect copyrighted works. But that strategy doesn’t work with AI audiobooks. Because AI Audiobooks searches for identical audio instead of text.
YouTube responded by saying that no one had issued a notice to take down the video. We anticipate that publishers will need to develop strategies to address this. Because making free versions of audiobooks easily available, even substandard versions, will definitely impact sales. However, if manually searching for these AI slop audiobooks and issuing takedown notices individually is the only option, I’m not sure the math will work out, especially when another audiobook could pop up in its place overnight.
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Move over blob books, painted book covers are back in fashion
The last trend in literary novel covers was the blob. Blobs are colorful, abstract designs that are still recognizable when viewed as 1-inch-tall images on a mobile phone screen. Nowadays, painted book covers using oil or acrylic paint are making a comeback. The Hyperallergic article by Tara Ann Darbow is full of examples of different approaches to this style, and Darbow points out the possible inspirations behind them. “In a market flooded with design templates and AI-generated images, a painted cover has a distinctly human touch.”
AI lawsuit reveals the troubles of copyright
The recent $1.5 billion Anthropic settlement is one of the biggest developments in AI and publishing. However, as Writer Beware points out, some of the confusion surrounding copyright has become clear. Payments from the Anthropic lawsuit went only to authors of books with ISBNs, excluding most self-published and many indie-published titles. A further limitation is that even many traditionally published authors struggle with publishers not copyrighting their books, even if it was part of the deal. This makes them ineligible for settlement. The aftermath of this case showed that the reality of copyright is much more troubling than it first appears.
Don’t panic with your towel
Grab a towel, pour yourself a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, and whatever you do, don’t panic. This week on the “Zero to Well-Read” podcast, Jeff and Rebecca journey through the strangest and most eccentric corners of the galaxy with Douglas Adams’ genre-defining comedy science fiction creation. they talk about Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”s surprising origins and wide-ranging influence, why Adams became one of the funniest writers of all time, and why the book’s overt silliness belies a sneaky insight into human nature. Of course, they also seek answers about life, the universe, and all things.
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