Does KDP require AI disclosure?

02

What do Draft2Digital, IngramSpark, Kobo, and Apple Books state?

These are separate pages, and this answer does not merge them into one rule. Draft2Digital's content guidelines, last updated October 27, 2025, say it is not a destination for people who seek to publish 100% AI-generated books, and that it does not accept "content generated solely by machine or other automated processes." Its AI line is: "While we support AI-assisted content we do not accept content that has been generated entirely by AI/LLMs that has not gone through extensive editing from a human." A disclosure checkbox and a fee are not stated. IngramSpark's catalog integrity post, dated Sunday, October 01, 2023, lists as item 7 "Content created using automated means, including but not limited to content generated using artificial intelligence or mass-produced processes." That post does not split acceptable and unacceptable AI use, and it does not state a disclosure checkbox or a fee. Lightning Source's content guidelines add that split. Acceptable uses named there include assistive tools such as spell check or proofing, work whose majority used human creativity, and generative AI, including translation, "with significant and material human editorial review and contribution with proper attribution." Unacceptable uses are "Works created solely using generative AI" and works that violate intellectual property or copyright. The page says "Proper attribution of creation must accompany all works." IngramSpark's global discoverability guidance, posted May 01, 2024 and updated February 10, 2025, says that if AI was used for translating, provide "Artificial Intelligence" as the translator's name. Kobo's content policy, last updated October 5th, 2023, reserves the right to reject content "that is wholly or partially created by digital text-generation algorithms." Kobo Writing Life, updated March 26, 2026, lists content "generated primarily by automated tools that lacks genuine human effort, quality control, or is designed to exploit trends rather than offer genuine reader value." Neither Kobo page states a disclosure form or a fee. Apple Books' digital narration page says speech synthesis produces audiobooks from an ebook, that it is free, that the publisher or author retains the audiobook rights, and that there are no restrictions on producing and distributing other versions of the audiobook. A disclosure rule for AI-generated book text or images is not stated on that page.[424][425][426][427][428][429][430]

• Draft2Digital's "entirely by AI/LLMs" line and Kobo's "wholly or partially" line are not the same sentence.
• IngramSpark's 1 October 2023 post and the Lightning Source generative AI bullets are different pages.

03

What does the U.S. Copyright Office say about registering AI-generated material?

The Copyright and Artificial Intelligence page, checked 17 October 2026, says the Office launched an initiative in early 2023, published a notice of inquiry in August 2023, and received over 10,000 comments by December 2023. Part 1 was published on July 31, 2024, on digital replicas. Part 2 was published on January 29, 2025, on the copyrightability of outputs created using generative AI. A pre-publication Part 3 was released on May 9, 2025. The registration rule quoted here is the Federal Register statement of policy effective March 16, 2023. It says that if a work's traditional elements of authorship were produced by a machine, the work lacks human authorship and the Office will not register it. When an AI technology receives solely a prompt and produces a complex written, visual, or musical work, the Office says those elements are determined and executed by the technology, not the human user. When the technology determines the expressive elements, "that material is not protected by copyright and must be disclaimed in a registration application." A human may select, arrange, or modify AI-generated material enough to support a claim. In those cases "copyright will only protect the human-authored aspects of the work." Applicants "have a duty to disclose the inclusion of AI-generated content in a work submitted for registration and to provide a brief explanation of the human author's contributions to the work." They must use the Standard Application, and they should not list an AI technology or the company that provided it as an author or co-author simply because they used it. AI-generated content that is more than de minimis should be excluded under Material Excluded. The Office's example is "[description of content] generated by artificial intelligence." Someone who is unsure may give a general statement, and the Office will follow up. A registration that omitted the disclosure can be corrected with a supplementary registration. If information essential to registrability was omitted, the Office may cancel the registration. This is a registration policy, not a ruling on any one book, and KDP's two labels are not the Office's categories.[431][432]

• The Office's prompt example is not KDP's AI-assisted brainstorming example. Read each page's own definition.
• A fee for a copyright application is not stated in the passages quoted here.

• Do you need to register copyright before publishing?

04

What do these pages leave unknown?

They do not say whether a particular manuscript, cover, or translation meets KDP's label or the Copyright Office's human-authorship test. They do not price a disclosure, name the tools that count, or state a penalty amount. Draft2Digital, the IngramSpark post, both Kobo pages, and the Apple Books digital narration page do not state a disclosure checkbox. The Apple page does not state a rule for AI-generated book text or images. Whether a retailer will accept a given file is not stated on these public pages.[423][424][425][428][429][430][432]

• Check the live upload screen. These quotations are from the public pages, not from an account.

• KDP content guidelines

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