Apple Books has long been viewed as a cleaner alternative to Amazon’s Kindle Store. But if a new investigation is anything to go by, it may be fighting the same battle against AI-generated junk. In a recent YouTube Shorts video, The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern revealed that fake, AI-generated versions of her book have repeatedly appeared on Apple Books, despite being reported and removed.
Joanna Stern says fake copies keep coming back
As highlighted in the video below, Stern discovered multiple AI-generated books impersonating her work on Apple’s digital bookstore. The fake titles copied her name, mimicked the cover art and descriptions, and appeared convincing enough that unsuspecting readers could easily mistake them for legitimate releases.
Further, Stern explains that even after Apple removed some of the fraudulent listings, new ones quickly surfaced in their place. The cycle has become a game of digital whack-a-mole, suggesting that simply taking down fake books isn’t enough if new AI-generated copies can be uploaded just as easily. She also points out that the issue isn’t unique to Apple, with Amazon’s Kindle Store having struggled with similar AI-generated knockoffs over the past year.
AI made publishing easier. It also made copying easier.
The funny thing is that AI isn’t really the problem here. It’s how effortless it has become to mass-produce convincing books that imitate real authors. Digital bookstores were built around the idea that publishing should be accessible, but generative AI has dramatically lowered the barrier for bad actors looking to flood marketplaces with low-quality or outright fraudulent content.
Apple and Amazon now face the same challenge: keeping their stores open to legitimate independent authors while preventing AI-generated impersonation from slipping through. If platforms can’t get ahead of the problem, readers may soon find themselves questioning whether the book they’re about to buy was actually written by the author on the cover, or simply generated by a chatbot trying to cash in on someone else’s name