RE: https://xoxo.zone/@waxy/116772625748491745

I wrote about how I discovered that a new site for The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, John Koenig's long-running Tumblr project-turned-book, was a bootleg made by a marketing agency. They published the complete book verbatim, then added AI-generated art and new AI words, entirely without permission.

I confirmed from Koenig himself that he wasn't involved, and found Simon & Schuster issued DMCA takedowns to Google with little effect. The AEO/SEO-optimized site dominates every search related to the book, including the book title and author's name. ChatGPT and Gemini say it's the official site.

There's so much to dislike here, it's hard to know where to start. The "Submit Your Sorrows" feature is particularly galling, in which you describe an emotion or feeling and an AI generates a word, definition, and slop art for it.

@kazriko That's ghastly.