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AI companies are shredding rare books

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Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#311

Post by phoghed »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #181
phoghed wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s been determined that training on lawfully acquired works is fair use. Presumably in this discussion of shredding physical books Dario and Sam are not pulling heists at the local library. I’m sure there’s ongoing litigation, and better sources than this, but fair use was determined in June 2025 in a sf federal district court https://www.goodwinlaw.com/en/insights/publications/2025/06/... Similar conclusion vs met…

You don’t know what “Fair Use” is. Fair Use is not an activity that you engage in. Fair Use is not a category with criteria that you meet. Fair Use is not a precedent that paves the way for everything afterwards. Fair Use is a defense that can be used in court when you’re named in a copyright lawsuit. Fair Use is how you justify your actions before the court finds infringement.

Sure, everywhere it’s been legally tested so far and there’s been a conclusion, the outcome has been in favor of the LLM trainer. They just can’t steal the books, they have to pay for them. So claims by random HN users that it’s IP theft and copyright infringement and all that are currently incorrect.

Now if you look at how fair use is used colloquially, everyone understood what I meant except the autistic pedants.

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#312

Post by 59percentmore »

orthoxerox wrote: post #11
vessenes wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the last great near-term predictor. I often wish he'd written more. To remind us all, he predicted shred and scan would be a short stop over done by villains on the way to nondestructive scanning. That said, supporting Anna's archive is one of the best things you could do for humanity long term in my opinion.

Were they the villains? I remember the rogue three-letter-agency executive being the BBEG.

Part of the (relatively) happy denouement included the Chinese coming in with the nondestructive process and everyone being quite happy with that. So yes, the Shredders were the villains.

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#313

Post by Legend2440 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #195
sixdimensional wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I was thinking along these lines... Let's say one of the books to be digitized and destroyed is the sole remaining copy of a book from 1850, which is now considered public domain. On one hand, hoarding such a book, stealing its content from the public domain, locking its content behind a for-profit machine, and destroying the only remaining copy is clearly wrong. It's equivalent to stealing a public resource, j…

I think this misconstrus what public domain is. It provides a freedom to circulate, but not access to the material. It is not a public owned resource. Turning a copy over to the public or state might be an interesting requirement for obtaining a copyright, but instituting that fix for new works now would have a 70 year lag time. Think of it this way, if I copyright a book and put it in my dresser for 70 years, that d…

>Turning a copy over to the public or state might be an interesting requirement for obtaining a copyright

This has been a requirement in the US since 1790. It is called mandatory deposit: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/mandatory_deposit.html

They don't keep every book though.

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#314

Post by pfdietz »

cj wrote: post #205
streetfighter64 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a bunch of details regarding LLMs and copyright, but I don't see how > They should be forced to publicly release the books as an Ebook. would be reasonable in any way? The books aren't theirs to release publicly. If I brought a copy of any given movie on DVD, ripped it and used it to train my own "LLM" located at /dev/null, should I then be allowed (or even forced) to release the movie publicly for anyone to…

The alternative (throwing books away for no good reason) isn't much more reasonable.

It happens on a massive scale, so it's completely reasonable. Books are disposable information delivery vehicles now. Publishers pulp great quantities of unsold books too.

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#315

Post by phoghed »

rc5150 wrote: post #278
phoghed wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes IP theft and fair use are discussing legality, not morality. Whether or not it’s moral for someone to make money off somebody else’s labor or Reddit comments, I don’t want to get into a discussion about personally.

Okay, then step aside while others discuss the morality.

You don’t seem to be doing so, but I eagerly await your doubtless profound and unique insights on the topic.

> step aside

Isn’t that what I explicitly just did in the comment you replied to?

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#316

Post by pfdietz »

Jweb_Guru wrote: post #118
oliwarner wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bizarre comparison. Weeding is the natural process of disposing of less-demand books. Like the rest of us, libraries operate in finite space, so if they want new books, they have to remove ones their users aren't using. Most libraries will try to sell books before disposing of them in any destructive way. What similarities do you see here?

People are very desperate to try to claim that something that's somewhat obviously morally wrong is actually highly nuanced, because it makes them feel uncomfortable.

No, we're just telling you your moral intuition is absurd.

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#317

Post by thdr »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #248
squidbeak wrote: post #114

I've limited sympathy for the publishers. It pisses me off to reflect that they can sit on works until copyright expires, keeping them out of print. There's no real need for any of these so-called rare books to be rare while they're under copyright. And related to this, the books that are in print are mostly only in print in the shittiest way. I often see well-made books from the 17th or 18th centuries which are stil…

A friend proposed that copyright should just die with the author and / or their spouse and I'm left agreeing. I want books and music to be less strict on copyright. Some of my favorite YouTube channels break down music and songs, and go as far as recreating beats / tracks from famous hip hop songs, but someone at a record label company dings every one of their videos, they can barely sample a few seconds, its VERY CL…

> copyright should just die with the author

That would have a few undesirable consequences... for example, you wouldn't hire a 70 year old writer for your commercial project no matter how brilliant they are.

The complexity of our legal system is in many cases justified. The problems are often the numbers (duration of copyright protection etc.)

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#318

Post by SwtCyber »

andrepd wrote: post #186
thechao wrote: post #4

Which book that was rare was destroyed? I'm interested to know a few titles.

Rare or not, destroying books is in itself a morally repugnant act. I don't know man, it's not so long ago we used to view nazi book burnings as an archetype of evil. Today companies are offering book-burning-as-a-service and it hardly causes a stir. Bearded German man was right.

[dead]

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#320

Post by Aurornis »

squidbeak wrote: post #114

I've limited sympathy for the publishers. It pisses me off to reflect that they can sit on works until copyright expires, keeping them out of print. There's no real need for any of these so-called rare books to be rare while they're under copyright. And related to this, the books that are in print are mostly only in print in the shittiest way. I often see well-made books from the 17th or 18th centuries which are stil…

> It's ridiculous that in the 21st century, publication standards have fallen to the point where for most works a disposable format is the only type available - where no amount of money could buy a truly decent hardback copy.

This is purely a response to market demand. Publishers aren’t going to put in the extra expense of binding high quality versions of every book so it can occupy warehouse space while consumers everywhere buy the cheap paperback.

> And if the publisher keeps a book in print - but only in bestseller-grade materials, bogroll paper that furrows in any humidity and perfect binding that molts its pages a couple of dry seasons later - and if it refuses to print a durable hardback copy with signatures, good paper and decent print - something that will still be readable in several generations' time - any other publisher keen to have a crack at it should be able to, again without any compensation for the original publisher, though perhaps in this case, with matching royalties for the author.

This is all based on the idea that there is hidden demand for something, but publishers are choosing to deprive us all of it for reasons. That if we open up the laws, another company will come along and satisfy this hidden market opportunity and associated profits that publishers are declining to take.

The simpler explanation is that these high quality editions aren’t being published because the publishers have the data about demand for them. They know they won’t sell.

If the goal is preservation, laws forcing publishers to print on slightly nicer paper isn’t going to solve the problem. It needs to be a robust digital archive and it needs to exist somewhere other than in unsold warehouse inventory or some book collector’s shelf. You’re trying to solve a problem with last century’s technology.

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