AI companies are shredding rare books

Post by tourmalinetaco » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 7:22 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #371

open-paren wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you purchase every book two times, or do you have a home devoid of physical books that you enjoy? Genuinely curious

Not OP, but I do similar. I only de-spine a book if it is in poor condition (and I have a nice copy). Some of the material I scan is stapled instead of glued and I can remove the staples, scan and replace with new (not rusted!) staples to return the book to its original form. I have books but would have 5x as many if I could not capture them digitally. (When I go to move or go through a purge, some of the books I sca…

Post by delecti » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 7:28 PM UTC

DrScientist wrote: post #458

delecti wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just 30 years? Patents get a flat 20. Not that I'm arguing for 30 per se, just that I don't see what goals of copyright would be advanced more by adding an "or until death" complication.

For inventions if you don't make money off it in the first 20 years you are unlikely to ever make any money off it - as the invention space moves on. That's not the same for a work of fiction or a piece of music. Case in point apparently books sales for the Odyssey are massively up - when it was originally written in 7-8 BC :-) Also most books etc don't make much, if any money - an publisher/author might rely on a th…

Post by phoghed » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 7:53 PM UTC

roarcher wrote: post #336

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.

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.

Post by TeMPOraL » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 7:59 PM UTC

kmeisthax wrote: post #457

TeMPOraL wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You don't need to shred books to scan them. They make book scanners that will "rip" a fully-bound book no-problem, and even correct for the curvature of the page and binding to give you an equivalent image. In fact, the Internet Archive specifically built nondestructive book scanners[0] for exactly the purpose of which AI companies are now shredding books. The smart / savvy thing to do would be to buy those machines…

Post by monknomo » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 8:02 PM UTC

altmanaltman wrote: post #388

monknomo wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20 years to make some money, and then we set the work free for the public benefit. If it's good enough for patents, I don't see why it isn't good enough for copyrights.

But this must then follow for all forms of works, why just books? Every company whose original creator dies must be converted into a public company within 20 years of founder's death for the public benefit as well if that's the case. If I wrote it, I own the copyright on it, why should I or my future family give away something I worked really hard for? Why do only authors must care about public benefits?