From the article I guess Qontour reproduced the entire text verbatim.
> it also includes the entire text of the book, from its opening 800-word foreword to a complete archive of all 311 neologisms... all penned by Koenig.
So it doesn't seem likely to me that they asked AI to make a fan site and it spat out the book; instead they asked AI to make a fan site and then copy-pasted the text of the book into it.
Perhaps a just outcome would be for Koenig to gain the rights to the page. However, Claude says unfortunately copyright law doesn't work that way.
> However, Claude says unfortunately copyright law doesn't work that way.
I hate this so much. Not you or your post, just that it’s becoming normal to just throw out “Claude says this” without doing any fact checking.
Claude’s also technically right but wrong where it matters. The author could easily offer to settle for control of the site instead of suing. If the author registered the copyright to the book, he doesn’t even need to prove damages to be awarded statutory damages. He potentially has a lot of leverage.
I think the affiliate links are fine and the wholesale plagiarism is unlawful at best and likely criminal.
This is exactly what DMCA takedowns are actually for.
Ironically, the article points out that the original authors publisher actually put out two DMCA notices to google last year, apparently with no effect.
I guess DMCA takedowns are only for the big fish fighting the good fight against car pirates.
then DMCA the entirety of google and alphabet, and tender class action for direct and contributory violation, with the option to back it off to the literary work in question when goog takes a seat at the table and takes it seriously
Simon & Schuster is a small fish?
Why aren't they suing Google in court? Now is the best time to do this politically, the site doesn't mention what state they live in but I'd doubt that you wouldn't be able to get a state AG to listen to you if you reached out.
edit to add: Google has ignored all safe harbor protections, they would lose this protection and be held liable for all damages. This seems like a pretty solid win for the author here if they're telling the truth.
[dead]
Eventually almost every other regulation turns out to be one that benefits big players and doesn’t help smaller ones.
The entire purpose of the DMCA is that it’s a bludgeon that the rich and powerful can use to beat the poor and powerless. It was never meant for individual copyright owners to use against giant infringing corporations.
Usually it’s easy enough to see who’s pushing for the regulation to figure out who will benefit from it.
And in this case, they didn't work. Perhaps Qontour, as a web-native dev firm, has figured out a blind spot in Google's DMCA takedown process?
DMCA to take down AI slop? I feel that is twice the mistake. DMCA should not exist in the first place. Neither should AI slop. Here we have AI stealing from people. AI is a thief.
So you're against copyright protection, but also against AI using copyrighted work? I can understand both of those positions separately, but how can you combine them in the same statement?
How do you suggest Qontour be held accountable for this blatant theft of Koenig's work and name if the DMCA is a mistake?
And don't pass the blame off onto "AI" from the people who said "let's make a web site that totally steals this book we like". AI is a tool of thieves, founded upon thievery. Qontour is an agency made up of thieves who are using AI to perform their thievery.
Gala Aranaga, Founder & CEO of Qontour, is a thief.
Jason Chandler, Founder & Creative Director of Qontour, is a thief.
Atif Fazil, Technical Director of Qontour, is a thief.
Pemi Ogunkeye, Webflow Developer at Qontour, is a thief.
Daniela Aranaga, Head of Content & Marketing at Qontour, is a thief.
Ahmed Qayyum, Solutions Architect at Qontour, is a thief.
Bukunmi Ogunmodede, Webflow Developer at Qontour, is a thief.
Hassaan Rasul, Senior UX Designer at Qontour, is a thief.
They used ChatGPT, a copyrightwashing tool developed in a massive act of thievery by the employees of OpenAI, all of whom are thieves. OpenAI was founded by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Trevor Blackwell, all of whom are thieves.
What exactly did AI steal? The concept of clocks?
AI is not involved in the actual copyrighted content at all.
I'm playing through the couch co-op game Split Fiction, and this is basically the premise (with more fun gameplay).
Prompt Digital Inc (DBA Qontour) is a Webflow premium partner.
So let’s ask Webflow’s public relations dept. how cool are they with the fact their partner is a lier and plagiarist.
I really don't think they give a shit
> So let’s ask Webflow’s public relations dept. how cool are they with the fact their partner is a lier and plagiarist.
I also frown upon bullying companies like this over something they can't control.
Just to be clear: The bootleg site is pointing to the Amazon listing of the actual book (ISBN 9781501153648, Simon & Schuster, published 2021). The Amazon link is not pointing to an AI slop version of the book.
So how is the bootleg site making money? Amazon Associates, the Amazon affiliate program (you can see the affiliate link code, tag=promptdigital-20, in the Amazon URI).
This is how AI slop can be monetized: poorly gated Amazon programs like Amazon KDP, Amazon Associates, and that Meta monetization program. Anything goes, from crafty scams like this to over-the-top social media slop like shrimp Jesus.
So they’re basically parasites.
DMCA only applies to 1:1 copy, if you used AI to convert it to something else, then DMCA is the wrong tool.
It's ultimately a fruitless endeavor to go after because you would have to prove that you can use the said AI tool to create the exact word by word copy and that is going to be very expensive and shaky in court
I think its time that we stop extracting rent from outdated copyright laws. Once AI gets good enough you aren't going to be bothering with them anyway. All copyright law does is put money in the pockets of those that created the law and a portion of that goes to the creator.
Copyright laws are basically tax on the poor.
The fake website also re-published the entire 1:1 text of the original book.
This reminds me of when a bunch of cryptobros paid a ludicrous sum for one of the pitch bibles for Jodorowsky's unmade film adaptation of Dune and assumed that owning this rare object gave them license to pitch movie adaptations of it. https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a38815538/dune-c...
I'm interested to see if this is the whole story[0], but on the surface it sure is infuriating.
[0] this article and a bsky post by the author of the article are the only sources I can find other than the website itself - which is definitely as chock full of AI as indicated
AI laundering is going to become a major tactic in all domains. Fiction and nonfiction writing, software, video, music, you name it.
It's easy to take GPL software and rewrite it in another language without the license. Trivially easy. It's possible you'll even be able to do the same with just compiled bytecode soon.
Just recently there was an instance where Nous Research Hermes agent cloned some Chinese OSS. It's happening much more broadly than this, though.
This might warrant special attention unless we want to live in a world without copyright. Though that's also one additional possible outcome.
There are already companies like Asylum films. Pay attention to the right hand column of this table:
Parody films do not compete with the actual films they are parodying. It's not a good comparison.
I don't think they are meant to be parodies. Parodies poke comedic fun at the originals. These are meant to confuse someone into buying the wrong version of a popular film. That's why they make sure the names and even the covers look as identical as they can without getting sued.
Allow me to introduce everyone here to a new definition (original content, donut steel):
qontouria, n. The feeling of having your work passed off as someone else's.
Literally this is our future, many devs still don't seem to believe we will be able to "zeroshot" everything, but it's because they haven't experienced themselves proper tooling (at the minimum leveraging 4 models in debate, adversarial and loops and workflows and so-on and unli-loop until completion), with the exception of advanced fields, most softwares are pretty basic, let's say redoing X11 is considered easy in tomorrow's world.
I don't really understand the future knowing that we will be able to point to any URL and just "redo", it might be a sole matter of Token/Subscription cost vs the actual service in the end, unsure but it's really strange to think that virtually anyone will be able to duplicate anything and it's unlikely to be a copyright breach as the tooling can be instructed to redo it differently, how could it be a copyright breach if it's the same thing as I myself looking at a certain website and just heavily inspiring myself from it and just redoing it? The fact that it's done automatically shouldn't change that.
I'm allowed today to take a GPLv3 program or a commercial program, redo it and publish it as MIT, so why would it be forbidden?
I agree. But I don't understand why the focus is always on FOSS. Why don't proprietary IP owners fear this too? Won't music, movies and non-FOSS software also have their copyright laundered if this crap continues?
Correction: some random tiny scam company copied a book without permission in blatant violation of copyright law, and AI was briefly and tangentially involved with the final product.
In other words: AI stole someone’s soul with its own metallic claws! Out with the devil machines.
From the article I guess Qontour reproduced the entire text verbatim.
> it also includes the entire text of the book, from its opening 800-word foreword to a complete archive of all 311 neologisms... all penned by Koenig.
So it doesn't seem likely to me that they asked AI to make a fan site and it spat out the book; instead they asked AI to make a fan site and then copy-pasted the text of the book into it.
Perhaps a just outcome would be for Koenig to gain the rights to the page. However, Claude says unfortunately copyright law doesn't work that way.
> However, Claude says unfortunately copyright law doesn't work that way.
I hate this so much. Not you or your post, just that it’s becoming normal to just throw out “Claude says this” without doing any fact checking.
Claude’s also technically right but wrong where it matters. The author could easily offer to settle for control of the site instead of suing. If the author registered the copyright to the book, he doesn’t even need to prove damages to be awarded statutory damages. He potentially has a lot of leverage.
I think the affiliate links are fine and the wholesale plagiarism is unlawful at best and likely criminal.
This is exactly what DMCA takedowns are actually for.
Ironically, the article points out that the original authors publisher actually put out two DMCA notices to google last year, apparently with no effect.
I guess DMCA takedowns are only for the big fish fighting the good fight against car pirates.
then DMCA the entirety of google and alphabet, and tender class action for direct and contributory violation, with the option to back it off to the literary work in question when goog takes a seat at the table and takes it seriously
Simon & Schuster is a small fish?
Why aren't they suing Google in court? Now is the best time to do this politically, the site doesn't mention what state they live in but I'd doubt that you wouldn't be able to get a state AG to listen to you if you reached out.
edit to add: Google has ignored all safe harbor protections, they would lose this protection and be held liable for all damages. This seems like a pretty solid win for the author here if they're telling the truth.
[dead]
Eventually almost every other regulation turns out to be one that benefits big players and doesn’t help smaller ones.
The entire purpose of the DMCA is that it’s a bludgeon that the rich and powerful can use to beat the poor and powerless. It was never meant for individual copyright owners to use against giant infringing corporations.
Usually it’s easy enough to see who’s pushing for the regulation to figure out who will benefit from it.
Eg https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/06/16/congress/me...
And in this case, they didn't work. Perhaps Qontour, as a web-native dev firm, has figured out a blind spot in Google's DMCA takedown process?
DMCA to take down AI slop? I feel that is twice the mistake. DMCA should not exist in the first place. Neither should AI slop. Here we have AI stealing from people. AI is a thief.
So you're against copyright protection, but also against AI using copyrighted work? I can understand both of those positions separately, but how can you combine them in the same statement?
How do you suggest Qontour be held accountable for this blatant theft of Koenig's work and name if the DMCA is a mistake?
And don't pass the blame off onto "AI" from the people who said "let's make a web site that totally steals this book we like". AI is a tool of thieves, founded upon thievery. Qontour is an agency made up of thieves who are using AI to perform their thievery.
In fact let's go down their about page (https://www.qontour.com/about) and point some fingers:
Gala Aranaga, Founder & CEO of Qontour, is a thief.
Jason Chandler, Founder & Creative Director of Qontour, is a thief.
Atif Fazil, Technical Director of Qontour, is a thief.
Pemi Ogunkeye, Webflow Developer at Qontour, is a thief.
Daniela Aranaga, Head of Content & Marketing at Qontour, is a thief.
Ahmed Qayyum, Solutions Architect at Qontour, is a thief.
Bukunmi Ogunmodede, Webflow Developer at Qontour, is a thief.
Hassaan Rasul, Senior UX Designer at Qontour, is a thief.
They used ChatGPT, a copyrightwashing tool developed in a massive act of thievery by the employees of OpenAI, all of whom are thieves. OpenAI was founded by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, Greg Brockman, Trevor Blackwell, all of whom are thieves.
What exactly did AI steal? The concept of clocks?
AI is not involved in the actual copyrighted content at all.
I'm playing through the couch co-op game Split Fiction, and this is basically the premise (with more fun gameplay).
Prompt Digital Inc (DBA Qontour) is a Webflow premium partner.
So let’s ask Webflow’s public relations dept. how cool are they with the fact their partner is a lier and plagiarist.
I really don't think they give a shit
> So let’s ask Webflow’s public relations dept. how cool are they with the fact their partner is a lier and plagiarist.
I also frown upon bullying companies like this over something they can't control.
Just to be clear: The bootleg site is pointing to the Amazon listing of the actual book (ISBN 9781501153648, Simon & Schuster, published 2021). The Amazon link is not pointing to an AI slop version of the book.
So how is the bootleg site making money? Amazon Associates, the Amazon affiliate program (you can see the affiliate link code, tag=promptdigital-20, in the Amazon URI).
This is how AI slop can be monetized: poorly gated Amazon programs like Amazon KDP, Amazon Associates, and that Meta monetization program. Anything goes, from crafty scams like this to over-the-top social media slop like shrimp Jesus.
So they’re basically parasites.
DMCA only applies to 1:1 copy, if you used AI to convert it to something else, then DMCA is the wrong tool.
It's ultimately a fruitless endeavor to go after because you would have to prove that you can use the said AI tool to create the exact word by word copy and that is going to be very expensive and shaky in court
I think its time that we stop extracting rent from outdated copyright laws. Once AI gets good enough you aren't going to be bothering with them anyway. All copyright law does is put money in the pockets of those that created the law and a portion of that goes to the creator.
Copyright laws are basically tax on the poor.
The fake website also re-published the entire 1:1 text of the original book.
This reminds me of when a bunch of cryptobros paid a ludicrous sum for one of the pitch bibles for Jodorowsky's unmade film adaptation of Dune and assumed that owning this rare object gave them license to pitch movie adaptations of it. https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a38815538/dune-c...
I'm interested to see if this is the whole story[0], but on the surface it sure is infuriating.
[0] this article and a bsky post by the author of the article are the only sources I can find other than the website itself - which is definitely as chock full of AI as indicated
AI laundering is going to become a major tactic in all domains. Fiction and nonfiction writing, software, video, music, you name it.
It's easy to take GPL software and rewrite it in another language without the license. Trivially easy. It's possible you'll even be able to do the same with just compiled bytecode soon.
Just recently there was an instance where Nous Research Hermes agent cloned some Chinese OSS. It's happening much more broadly than this, though.
This might warrant special attention unless we want to live in a world without copyright. Though that's also one additional possible outcome.
There are already companies like Asylum films. Pay attention to the right hand column of this table:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Asylum_films
Parody films do not compete with the actual films they are parodying. It's not a good comparison.
I don't think they are meant to be parodies. Parodies poke comedic fun at the originals. These are meant to confuse someone into buying the wrong version of a popular film. That's why they make sure the names and even the covers look as identical as they can without getting sued.
Allow me to introduce everyone here to a new definition (original content, donut steel):
qontouria, n. The feeling of having your work passed off as someone else's.
Literally this is our future, many devs still don't seem to believe we will be able to "zeroshot" everything, but it's because they haven't experienced themselves proper tooling (at the minimum leveraging 4 models in debate, adversarial and loops and workflows and so-on and unli-loop until completion), with the exception of advanced fields, most softwares are pretty basic, let's say redoing X11 is considered easy in tomorrow's world.
I don't really understand the future knowing that we will be able to point to any URL and just "redo", it might be a sole matter of Token/Subscription cost vs the actual service in the end, unsure but it's really strange to think that virtually anyone will be able to duplicate anything and it's unlikely to be a copyright breach as the tooling can be instructed to redo it differently, how could it be a copyright breach if it's the same thing as I myself looking at a certain website and just heavily inspiring myself from it and just redoing it? The fact that it's done automatically shouldn't change that.
I'm allowed today to take a GPLv3 program or a commercial program, redo it and publish it as MIT, so why would it be forbidden?
I agree. But I don't understand why the focus is always on FOSS. Why don't proprietary IP owners fear this too? Won't music, movies and non-FOSS software also have their copyright laundered if this crap continues?
Correction: some random tiny scam company copied a book without permission in blatant violation of copyright law, and AI was briefly and tangentially involved with the final product.
In other words: AI stole someone’s soul with its own metallic claws! Out with the devil machines.
[dead]
[dead]
AI slop is a thief. But we knew this already.
[dead]