Publishing-industry analyst Thad McIlroy's blog, with ongoing coverage of AI's impact on book publishing, authorship and copyright.
Read / subscribe freeThad McIlroy examines whether the surge of AI-generated books is flooding the market and diluting the value of human-authored work, discussing the Chakrabarty paper and publishing-industry responses.
Other resources that share this publication's topics.
MediaPost report (Sept. 28, 2026) on falling traffic to media websites as Google and other companies route readers to AI summaries, citing a drop from 70 million monthly visitors in July 2024 to about 47 million in July 2026.
Personal site of A. Feder Cooper, a researcher working on the intersection of machine learning and law, including work on copyright and generative AI, data privacy and ML systems. Lists publications, talks and writing.
Blog post reporting that OpenAI moved to strike an academic paper by Professor Tuhin Chakrabarty on generative AI flooding the book market, citing an alleged disclosure on his CV of $100,000 in funding from Susman Godfrey, the law firm representing plaintiffs in copyright litigation against OpenAI. Single-source reporting on an active legal dispute.
The Authors Guild's guidance for writers on using AI tools, covering disclosure, copyright protection, contract clauses and the guild's positions on AI training on books. Written by an advocacy organization for authors.
Internet Archive's open book catalogue: read, borrow and discover more than 3 million books free.
Why I recommend it: Free account needed to borrow; popular titles can have a waitlist.
Chartbeat analysis of two years of publisher traffic: articles are the front door about two-thirds of the time, homepages have shifted toward reader loyalty and recirculation, and AI overviews are part of the changing referral mix.
Why I recommend it: Free post from an analytics vendor, so the framing serves Chartbeat's products. The raw split — 67% of visits landing on articles versus 33% on homepages — is their own network data and worth knowing if you publish or run a content business.
