Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025) • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#141

Post by tolerance » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:19 PM UTC

ajcp wrote: post #132

tolerance wrote: post #124

If you shouldn't be able to copyright GRAPES...you shouldn't be able to copyright BOOKS.

And why's that? I don't see how either of those two things relate to one another. A grape is a naturally occurring fruit, while the creation of a book is wholly a human creative endeavor.

When I buy grapes, yeah, I get that someone worked for me to get 'em. But I don't get all metaphysical and spooky about it. I'm buying the grapes as objects. Like a book. Once I take ownership of the object, yes, thanks for your work. I paid you and I wish you well.

As far as what I ought to be able to do with the thing? Beat it. Of course there are exceptions. You say, "Don't scan the book and upload it to object storage and place it behind a CDN so Ahmed from Tounis can access it". I say, "Don't make wine".

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#142

Post by mr_toad » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:21 PM UTC

0x3f wrote: post #37

OrangeDelonge wrote: post #16

Curious as to how you would approach this. I have no experience in this area, anyone on this forum willing to share their expertise?

If it works as AA seems to theorize, you'd need to: (a) work out how Google books exposes fragments of books, and see if there's a systematic way of using this to get whole books. For example, a naive approach might be to find any fragment of the book by searching some exact phrase. Then, you can search for an exact phrase from the start or end of the fragment it gave you, hoping it will show you the previous or next…

(c) avoid being hounded to death by a zealous district attorney.

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#143

Post by Cider9986 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:29 PM UTC

cubefox wrote: post #134

HN logic: Training on copyrighted material --> bad Actually distributing copyrighted material --> good Needless to say, this is backwards. Any copyright holder will be much more worried about the latter.

At least Anna's archive is consistent.

Copyright reform is necessary for national security

https://annas-archive.gl/blog/ai-copyright.html

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#144

Post by Cider9986 » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:30 PM UTC

mmooss wrote: post #121

atemerev wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chinese (and some other) AI companies buying fast access to their dataset.

So Anna's Archive is in some ways a front for AI companies, gathering the sources they can't get themselves?

They could get access for free through torrents.

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#145

Post by elrostelperien » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:31 PM UTC

Almondsetat wrote: post #137

jvm___ wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://send.djazz.se/ This is key for getting epubs to your Kobo.

Or... just a USB cable?

I agree that a USB cable is the most practical option. However, the aforementioned site is useful in a specific scenario: if your Kobo is very old, macOS won't recognize it.

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#146

Post by sureglymop » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:31 PM UTC

pull_my_finger wrote: post #63

jvm___ wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://send.djazz.se/ This is key for getting epubs to your Kobo.

I don't understand what this is doing. Can't you sideload any ebook onto a kobo anyway? Never had an issue on my Clara

Yes. You can literally ssh into a kobo. I usually just put my books on a WebDAV share that is mounted on the kobo.

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#147

Post by whycome » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:33 PM UTC

ahmedfromtunis wrote: post #19

I live in a country where the selection of available books, especially in English, is very limited. Buying online from foreign markets comes with a long list of administrative hurdles and limits. If it were not for Anna's Archive and Z-Library, I would've never been able to read the books that shaped who I am today, or keep my passion for learning alive. Thanks, AA and ZLib! (Also, thank you to the authors whose book…

So you’re saying your entire current life is because of the proceeds of crime?!

I’m kidding. Knowledge should be free. It was never created in a vacuum. It belongs to us all

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#148

Post by whycome » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:35 PM UTC

Salgat wrote: post #127

jvm___ wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://send.djazz.se/ This is key for getting epubs to your Kobo.

This is a genius way to farm ebooks while providing a useful service. I personally just use Google drive though.

Lol it never occurred to me that they might just save every single upload

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#149

Post by OriginalPenguin » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:45 PM UTC

boca_honey wrote: post #68

logicchains wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the practice of writing and publishing genuinely good work is being wiped out. Most of the best literature in the English language was written before modern IP law was even a thing. There's very little good literature written by authors primarily motivated by money.

That's just cultural elitism. I hope you meet someone in your life who finds absolute joy in reading young adult romance novels or D&D fantasy books so you can understand how irrelevant "good" literature is. I love Dostoevsky and Verne (and D&D novels, especially those written by R.A. Salvatore), but I would never judge the modern "IPs" that got my daughter into reading. > best literature What does that even mean?

Everyone has their own opinion as to what the best literature is, just like what the best music is.

But there is also some consensus. For music it would be Beethoven, Mozart, the Beatles, etc.

For literature it would include Tolstoy, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dickens, Austen, Tolkien, and many more. I would bet it will eventually include Stephen King but it's too early to make that call now.

Re: Google Books (or similar) all book scans – $200k bounty (2025)

#150

Post by leoc » Sat, Jul 04, 2026, 10:58 PM UTC

Cider9986 wrote: post #101

leoc wrote: post #94

Just do it and be legends, Larry. ;)

Apple won't even help Asahi linux even though it would help hardware sales and give them a ton of goodwill.

Oh, I have no expectation that Page or Brin would do something like this, let alone do it openly. But Page did seem to care about Books access at one point, and I find the image of him secretly leaking the Google Books corpus amusing.