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Barnes and Noble has a measured take on AI books
(goodereader.com)
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this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2026
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Ebook Readers and Book Machines
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Anyone remember when Assassin of Secrets came out 15 years ago? It was a detective novel that got middling reviews, but shortly after it came out, people realized that the whole book was plagiarized. Like, every word.
But the author didn't rip it all from one other book. They took sentences, phrases, paragraphs from dozens of different detective novels. It was like a collage of other, better authors' words copy-pasted into a weird amalgamation, a rough interpretation of the genre.
When that came out, the author was basically burned at the stake. Never had anything published again. The publisher had to refund booksellers. It was a whole to-do.
...I think about that book and how people reacted to it a lot when we talk about AI.
I remember asking people when modern AI was first becoming popular why it became OK to plagiarize things by the word but not by the sentence.
Interesting because there was an art movement in the 60s, I can't recall name now. But they would take a bunch of different books, cut out sentences and paragraphs, and scatter them all over the floor and mix them up. Then they'd spend weeks or whatever and arrange the sentences into new stories and new context. It was art.
To be honest, I like that idea of it. I think people get too caught in being outraged sometimes.
Context matters though. The above example was hidden from people and used for a profit. Your example is not for profit and was disclosed before making it. One is exploitation, the other is appreciation.
Agreed.