Korean Publishers Are Mass-Producing AI Books to Extract Millions from the National Library
A 'click publishing' scam is flooding South Korea's National Central Library with thousands of AI-generated books, exploiting a legal deposit system that pays publishers per title — and regulators have no quality filter to stop it.
A single Korean publisher produced 9,000 books in just 15 months, earning an estimated 90 million won (roughly $65,000 USD) from the country's national library deposit system — and nearly all of the titles appear to have been generated by AI. The scheme, which has been dubbed '딸깍 출판' or 'click publishing,' is now the biggest controversy roiling Korea's publishing industry, as reported by @REAL_GOMGOM in a viral thread that drew over 3,000 likes and 3,000 reposts.
The mechanics are straightforward and alarmingly efficient. South Korea's National Central Library operates a legal deposit system (납본) requiring publishers to submit copies of every book they produce. In return, the library compensates publishers for each deposited title. The system was designed decades ago to preserve the nation's intellectual output. It was not designed for an era in which a single person with an LLM subscription can generate a passable manuscript in minutes.
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