A Report on a Problem in the Publishing Industry Preprint By
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A Report on a Problem in the Publishing Industry Preprint By Kirsten Hacker May 2021 1 Contents Introduction Section 1: Klara and the Sun Section 2: The Midnight Library Section 3: Uma and the Answer to Absolutely Everything Section 4: Agency Section 5: The Other Me Section 6: The Red Labyrinth Section 7: Piranesi Section 8: Oona Out of Order Section 9: Individutopia Section 10: Kings of a Dead World Section 11: I, Henry Section 12: Giver of Stars Section 13: Me Before You Section 14: Royally Screwed Section 15: The DaVinci Code Section 16: Murakami Conclusion 2 Introduction I am an ex-physicist who quit her post-doctoral work to write a novel and raise her children. Shortly after my book was completed, it was stolen by nine people associated with the British publishing industry. This has led me to investigate how this came about and to discover that I am not the only person who has had this sort of problem. Not only is a culture of theft rampant within the industry, IP book contracting and software writing assistants allow thieves to use a team effort to create plausible deniability when they utilize lengthy sequences of writing prompts from sources that are unknown or hidden from them. These thieves will tell everyone that 'there are no new stories', but fortunately, everyone isn't that stupid. When readers or authors conflate the similarity of books that share 4 consecutive plot overlaps and books that share 40 consecutive plot overlaps, quantifying the difference between inspiration and copying becomes necessary within a legal framework so that when an author is given a set of writing prompts from their agent or publisher and they do not ask about the source of those prompts, they understand that they can still be held liable for infringing, even if they were assured that the source was legally validated through IP book contracting. In this book, I will quantitatively characterize the problems I've encountered in the publishing industry and propose some metrics to help authors analyze books that appear to have used their work as a template, reference, or automated writing prompt generator. 3 Section 1 a.) Sir Kazuo Ishiguro is a Nobel Prize winning author and his most recent book, Klara and the Sun was published in 2021 by Penguin Random House. It appears to have been constructed with an automated writing tool to serve as an example of the dangers of the proliferation of AI assisted writing that can mine an unknown author's body of work and reshape it into a marketable product at the press of a button. b.) This book contains not only a 90 point plot from my first novel, it also contains some scenes from stories written by a friend of mine who died a few years ago. If an AI automatically pulled these stories out of a database and smashed them together with my novel, this is an example of a technology that shouldn't be in use. c.) The names of the characters in this book are not only similar to those in my novel, they are also similar to the names of people I have known in real life and that is why I believe that my online footprint was used. The only city name mentioned in the entire book is the same city about which my dead friend wrote: Portland, Oregon. I see no reason for a man in Britain to write about the first-person experiences of a young, dying woman in Portland, Oregon. 4 1. The protagonist is a young slave who knows very little about the world, but she is very curious and perceptive. The story is told from her perspective. 1. There is an argument with an older male character who is a fellow slave. He treats the protagonist as greedy for wanting more of the thing that makes her feel alive. The thing that makes her feel alive also exposes her to people who will want to take her home with them and make use of her. (Ishiguro p. 2) (Hacker p. 5 v.1, p. N/A v.2) 1. Klara, that was greedy. You girl AFs are always so greedy… You took all of the nourishment for yourself,..’ 2. ‘The money for school is due on the 15th, so please don’t forget…. ‘Alix, about that…’ The ensuing argument escalated’. 2. The slavery of the protagonist is demonstrated by showing her for sale alongside other products that are evaluated by customers in scenes that take place on the same pages in both books. In Ishiguro’s book, she is owned by a store and in Hacker’s book, she is owned by a bank. She wound up in this place because she is desperately curious to learn about the world. (Ishiguro p. 6) (Hacker p. 6 v.1, p. 21 v.2) 1. had always longed to see more of the outside… 2. I had always been a good student …. and defiantly.. got a loan to pay for school 3. In her first encounter with a customer, she meets a disabled person with an odd way of walking. She feels safe with this person, but the mother of the limping, disabled person doesn’t want to buy the protagonist. There is no father in this scene. (Ishiguro p. 11-12) (Hacker p. 9-11 v.1, p. 26-28 v. 2) 1. the mother… her piercing stare .. was on me. I immediately looked away. 2. his mother… looked at me as though I were an animal he had picked up off of the street 4. She witnesses how people are sometimes cruel to slaves like her. (Ishiguro p. 16) (Hacker p. 19 v.1, p. 35 v.2) 1. young person treats a young woman like an unwanted toy 2. young men treat a young woman like a prostitute 5. In her second encounter with a customer, she meets a female character who is too thin and wearing a skimpy green shirt that reveals too much of her body. She doesn’t like her approach and when she takes her by the hand, she freezes up as a 5 defensive maneuver. She then watches as one of the other female products is selected and purchased. (Ishiguro p. 31) (Hacker p. 30 v.1, p. 49 v.2) 1. ‘a bright green tank top and her too thin arms were showing all the way up to the shoulders’ 2. ‘a direct view into her blouse. I thought I had seen the outline of her sternum. Her slim green dress..’ 2. She is struggling and wants to get out of the place in which she is trapped. 1. She is confused by how she has to sort things into boxes and has difficulty interpreting what is going on in her world. (Ishiguro p. 26) (Hacker p. 24 v.1, p. 39 v.2) 1. The word ‘box’ is used five times on one half page and the scene centers around her attempt to satisfy her manager. 2. The word ‘box’ is used five times on one half page that centers around her attempt to satisfy her manager. 2. A machine takes the energy she needs to survive and makes her feel weak. (Ishiguro p. 28) (Hacker p. 22 v.1, p. 38 v.2) 1. I could feel myself weakening.. allowed my posture to sag… 2. a Kafkaesque physical torture scene is used as a metaphor followed by “this is not healthy..” 3. The machine makes noise that is driving her crazy (Ishiguro p. 27) and she keeps looking for a girl child from her past to rescue her. (Ishiguro p. 29) (Hacker p. N/A v.1, p. 38 v.2) 1. 'began with a high pitched whine… I worried that Josie might have been trying to come back..' 2. 'chorus of screams sang out in my head… my little sister, Cara’s voice burst through the screams, ‘Alix! Come play!’' 4. Directly after this, she is tortured by the threat that someone she doesn’t like could lay a claim on her body. (Ishiguro p. 30) (Hacker p. 20 v.1, p. 36 v.2) This is the first of four examples in which two similar scenes in my book were reversed in the order they appeared within Ishiguro’s book. It seems to be a substitution feature of the algorithm. 1. 'She took my hand ..I want this one. She’s just right.' 2. 'His knee brushing against my elbow.. Get back to me when you know your price.' 6 5. The sun is used as a metaphor for hope and healing. This is introduced at the same point that a beggar is mentioned. (Ishiguro p. 37) (Hacker p. 26 v.1, p. 41 v. 2) 1. 'the sun gives nourishment… it brought Beggar Man back to life' 2. 'the sun rising or setting behind some mountains.. didn’t Diogenes live in a barrel and masturbate in public?' 3. We learn about her brave, new, technological future world 1. She is educated at home and is jealous of children who have personal assistants/artificial friends. She is drawn to these high tech objects of power possessed by urban elites. (Ishiguro p. ) (Hacker p. v.1, p. v.2) I created a number of beginnings to this story and this point comes from one that I’ve never published. I only sent it around to a small number of people. 2. She is being given lessons that demand her full attention and respect. (Ishiguro p. 56) (Hacker p.