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AI companies are shredding rare books

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Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#331

Post by TeMPOraL »

kmeisthax wrote: post #112
the-grump wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, regrettably, The Archive lent books regardless of physical possession. Publishers had accepted the prior arrangement before The Archive decided to push it, if not explicitly then implicitly by not suing. I'm a believer in The Archive's mission, and I wish they had treated the goodwill they'd accumulated as something worth preserving and not a currency to be spent. It has been stated by many before me: lending bo…

Just to be clear, publishers hadn't accepted the "controlled digital lending" (CDL) premise, not even with the one-to-one ratio. Their position was always "first sale ends when the atoms do". There was even controlling precedent: a few years before IA tried their online lending library thing, there was an "MP3 resale" company called ReDigi that had lost on very similar grounds. The publishers suing IA even made sure…

The big insanity is tying this to AI. Shredding books is about format shifting; it's a concession hard-won from copyright establishment, which would otherwise be more than happy to deny you the option to convert the media you owned from physical to digital.

AI training happens to be one of the fields exercising that option, but since it's the current favorite topic for people to hate on, here we are.

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#332

Post by doublerabbit »

edoloughlin wrote: post #235
ACCount37 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scanning books by taking them apart into singular pages and scanning those pages is faster and cheaper. AI training is a numbers game, so they want faster and cheaper. What happens to the pages after? No one needs them anymore, so they get mulched and recycled. That would be the dominant scanning method even if copyright wasn't a thing. But then again - if copyright wasn't a thing, there would be much less need to sc…

> What happens to the pages after? No one needs them anymore, so they get mulched and recycled. Strictly speaking, no one needs the Sistine Chapel or the Pietà etc. It would be a shame if they were mulched and recycled, though.

Same with the magna carta and the American constitution.

ChatGPT know them, i'd count that as digitalised why keep the originals?

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#333

Post by pfdietz »

qsera wrote: post #289
azan_ wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely want to know what exact point you are trying to make, I'm not a mind reader.

This entity is destroying books and make them only accessible via the "intelligence" exposed by their LLMs. So I ll give you two options... * their values are aligned with the best interests of humanity * their values are not aligned with the best interests of humanity. Now go ahead and read my mind!

> make them only accessible

But that's a lie. They're not destroying the last copy of books.

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#334

Post by Jweb_Guru »

pfdietz wrote: post #316
Jweb_Guru wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, clearly it's completely absurd to think that shredding rare books to more cheaply train LLMs is anything but a moral good, which is why there is this entire thread is full of people jumping through hoops to explain how it's technically legal (and therefore fine) and "you wouldn't have bought those books anyway" (I suppose we don't have the choice anymore!) and, most amusingly, "they're actually becoming digitized and searchable this way" (are LLMs stochastic parrots or aren't they?).

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#335

Post by psychoslave »

Guys never heard of palimpsests and how your regular scans won’t necessarily catch all data there is in the material?

Of course even disregarding this fact, this is utterly disgusting attack on humanity heritage, just as much as any group out there destroying what we should all cherish be it for the historical artifact they represent. Whatever how US judge name it, they don’t worth more than their same-behavior consorts that is terrorists and totalitarian governments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest

https://organiser.org/2025/07/24/304285/world/china-wages-wa...

https://www.historyexpose.com/things/demolition-afghanistans...

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-96432-9_...

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#336

Post by roarcher »

phoghed wrote: post #233
shimman wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might surprise people to learn but the law isn't the final arbiter on what is moral or just. The law only decides what is legal and as we've seen over our lived history as humans, many "legal" things may not be those we want society to uphold.

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.

The comment you originally replied to was clearly discussing morality. You don't get to insert your little "erm, ackshually" and then pretend to be a neutral observer.

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#337

Post by pessimizer »

ACCount37 wrote: post #10

The publishers sued AI companies for training on shadow library data, hoping to negotiate content deals for big $$$ down the line. Instead, they got analog hole'd. Turns out that buying an old book for $5 and destructively scanning it for $25 is way cheaper than paying extortion fees to the copyright-mongers. What I don't buy is it being "rare, precious books". First, they're not after ancient texts - they're after t…

> Turns out that buying an old book for $5 and destructively scanning it for $25

More like destructively scanning it for $0.25, if you include the wear and tear on the machine, the salary of the guy who unjams it when it chokes, and recycling fees.

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#338

Post by TeMPOraL »

wiether wrote: post #326
thdr wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

> for example, you wouldn't hire a 70 year old writer for your commercial project no matter how brilliant they are If you hire them, then you own the work you paid them to do, no?

Either that or if it didn't work, insurance industry would've created a product that makes it work for commissioned works. Nothing happens in isolation here.

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#339

Post by trescenzi »

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…

No one reasonable is concerned for publishers they are concerned for the books. Assuming the allegations are correct historical artifacts are being destroyed with no trace. It doesn’t even matter if they republish it. The artifact itself and the time it has transited is the valuable thing. It is simply immoral to destroy stuff like this.

Re: AI companies are shredding rare books

#340

Post by graeme »

wiether wrote: post #326
thdr wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

> for example, you wouldn't hire a 70 year old writer for your commercial project no matter how brilliant they are If you hire them, then you own the work you paid them to do, no?

Not in every country, and secondly if you're basing it on life of the author then that does't solve corporate copyright unless you tie it to the live of a particular employee.

You could do "life of author or X years, whichever is longer". Or include a period after death.

But you see how the complexities come in.

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