The Web Novel Scene is in Chaos Over a New Year's 'AI One-Click' Scandal

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A work titled 'Becoming the Right Hand of Qin Shi Huang in the Warring States Period' was recently selected as one of the top Alternative History novels of the year on the web novel platform Munpia.

But it turns out, it wasn't even just plagiarism—they literally ripped off a Chinese web novel called 'Qin Gong' (秦功) in its entirety, ran it through an AI translator, and posted it on Munpia as their own. It's been confirmed that the 'author' didn't even bother with the effort of changing the leads' names or tweaking the plot; it was just straight-up theft via AI translation. To make matters worse, it wasn't Munpia that caught it. A reader got suspicious of the 'translation-ese' writing style and found the original Chinese source in less than five minutes. While the copyright theft is a major issue, this is also a huge scandal because it proves Munpia basically did zero vetting or quality control.

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The original author actually quit writing due to financial hardship, but this Korean wannabe writer ripped it off with an 'AI click' and made dozens of times more money than the original creator. Also, the original plot apparently includes the annexation of Gojoseon later on, so you have to wonder what they were thinking when they decided to copy that specific story.