**The Guardian reports that the agents for debut book author Jerry Falade withdrew the manuscript for his book “Call Me, I’ll Hide the Body.” **
The book was much coveted by publishers. Falade’s agent Marc Gerald** **held the auction for the U.S. print. Minotaur, an imprint of Macmillan US, won the auction for reportedly the price tag of $2 million.
**The Guardian reports an email sent by his agents to publishers: **
“Jerry Falade produced an incredible manuscript that dazzled us and the top publishing professionals around the world. Unfortunately, we are no longer able to authenticate how the manuscript fully evolved from origin to completion.
“During the submission process we vetted the manuscript with Jerry for AI and felt trusting in his reassurance that it was written without utilising AI as a resource in the writing or editorial process. We can no longer substantiate that, and we are withdrawing the book.”
What does copyright have to do with this?
One entertainment lawyer on TikTok suggested that concerns about the potential loss of copyright protection for AI-generated works could factor in the decisions to pull publishing deals, especially books that might be turned into movies.
This sounds persuasive to me.