Verifying AI’s Sources and My Cautious Use in Fiction Writing

C. Dan Miller, the Copyright Detective

I am a returning IPNE (Independent Publishers of New England) member and turned to the IPNE Academy for help.  I watched the presentation Copyright in the Age of AI by Dan Miller and believe my book lies in the slightly off-white area of the Copyrightability Scale.  My work Ghosts in my DNA: Past lives of Boston is already completed and copyrighted and will launch in October.

I have been developing this book for several years but only found AI this past June 2025 and finished this work July 2025, two months before my estimated deadline.

One chapter is about my great, great uncle, a well-known actor from 1880-1910.  He was found in many books, magazines, and newspapers, with voluminous information on his personal life and the dozens of plays in which he performed.  

I used AI to zoom in on one particular play. I entered the simple prompt: describe the operetta 1880 Gypsy Baron. AI output included the storyline, plot, characters, origins, music and every other detail of this once sensational operetta.  Over 1,000 words were instantly in front of me.  I ended up using about 150 words of this output and paraphrased a compact abstract interspersed with dialog of my characters talking about this operetta while viewing the performance. I am estimating AI saved me a whole day of researching several books, finding the page numbers and paraphrasing. This was a page and a half of text. 

However, it did take time to check the sources of the content to rule out hallucinations. Wikipedia was the first source listed.  I found most everything there.  I checked the footnotes in the Wikipedia article for the relevant paragraphs.  There were many books referenced for this one article.  Here are two: 

•  Holden, Amanda, ed. (2001). “The Gypsy Baron”. The New Penguin Opera Guide.

•  Traubner, Richard  (2004). Operetta: A Theatrical History. 

Both books are available in full-text on Archive.org, my go-to resource for many chapters. When I began this book, I originally envisioned it to be non-fiction and diligently footnoted every source throughout the chapters.  It was boring; a regurgitation of the sources. I saw the arc of the story but no one else could.

So, I pivoted to historical fiction, and with the use of AI, have been able to write vivid scenes throughout to create realistic settings and events in days instead of weeks.  

My new great enjoyment is now writing fiction.