Apple Books is facing the same crisis that has plagued Amazon’s Kindle Store for the past couple of years: fake books. Typically composed of low-quality, AI-generated summaries, these “books” copy the titles and visual assets of real books to confuse buyers and cash in on search results for popular releases.
Recently, technology journalist and author Joanna Stern noticed that more than 10 titles on Apple Books closely mirrored her book, I Am Not a Robot: My Year Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything, by using the same title and cover design. Many even featured her name on the cover—or a sloppy version of it, at least.
Some of these books used AI‑generated covers that looked very similar to the real one. In the video above, Stern says that when she purchased a few of these titles, the contents read like AI‑generated chapter‑by‑chapter summaries of her own book, packaged and sold as standalone works rather than clearly labeled guides or summaries. She also found AI knockoffs of other popular books, like actor Lena Dunham’s Famesick and financial educator Haley Sacks’ Future Rich Person, on Apple Books.
Stern reported the knockoffs of her own book to Apple, and the company took them down in accordance with its policies regarding misleading content, copyright infringement, and AI labeling. But she quickly found new clones returning to the store in fresh variants, with small tweaks to titles, covers, and author names.
As AI gains the ability to create just about any form of digital content (often for free), users across a variety of platforms, from YouTube to Steam, are having to sift through videos, games, articles, and more that are generated with a prompt and a click of a button. This content not only confuses audiences but also siphons sales away from genuine creators, potentially undermining a publisher’s reputation.
