51–60 of 88 posts
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If air is so valuable to you, why don't you pay premium for it? Not that it's comparable to books, but it has the same presupposition as your question.
Because air is extremely common and not scarce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value Similarly, wholesale used books are cheap because they are extremely common and not scarce.
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> The scanning process they use is _intentionally_ destructive, not accidentally destructive. i am aware. i am saying that there are options to _intentionally_ be non-destructive. > They aren't like some crazy people that just want to destroy books. i didnt say or imply they were
The problem is the 'options to be intentionally non-destructive' come with legal liabilities that don't exist if they destroy the original copy.
they weighed the risk and made a decision. my comment was not calling them "crazy people" for making that decision. i thought my comment was pretty neutral.
If books were precious physical objects of great value, why is that not reflected in their prices? Used books are usually worthless. And if their inherent value was so great, regardless of supply or use, wouldn't we be able to churn out infinite value by just printing enormous nunbers of copies and storing them? This absurd consequence shows the outrage here is without rational foundation. It's feelings run amok. Fee…
What you are describing derisively as "feels" is actually nuance the very essence of intelligence is not reducing complexity to tapioca.
Destroying the last copy of a rare book reduces the sum total of human knowledge even if its not one already of note.
Historically current thinking isn't the best and most accurate judgement of value. We cherish many works that were not notable upon publication or even in the author's lifetime.
Previously the works were distributed and hard to lose all at once now they are possibly inaccurately scanned and even that slightly lossy data may disappear all at once in a wave bankruptcy especially if the economy crashes again as seems to happen every 10 to 20 years.
I suggest you ruminate instead of patting yourself on the back
I find it interesting that no one cared if these books were destroyed before, but now they are suddenly valuable and worth preserving? These are books that were sitting in some warehouse waiting to be destroyed until it was discovered that AI companies would buy them in bulk. Most of these books are 'rare' because no one bought them, so they didn't print many, and the ones they did print weren't sold so they sat in a…
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IANAL, but I think you are allowed to copy work for non-commercial use.
It's very dependent on jurisdiction (and if you're rich, or a big company). In UK there's no non-commercial use exception at all. In USA it can fall under Fair Use, commercial nature is not the sole measure though.
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The problem is the 'options to be intentionally non-destructive' come with legal liabilities that don't exist if they destroy the original copy.
sure, i agree with that. all they content the pirated originally also came with legal liabilities. they weighed the risk and made a decision. my comment was not calling them "crazy people" for making that decision. i thought my comment was pretty neutral.
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The scanning process they use is _intentionally_ destructive, not accidentally destructive. It's not because they hate books or something. It's literally to stay in the law due to the legal rulings surrounding AI companies and copyright. If they had the option of not destroying the books without any risk of further lawsuit, they would. They aren't like some crazy people that just want to destroy books.
They do have the option to not destroy the books. Their hand isn’t being forced. You can choose not to be scumbags just as you can choose to use a legal loophole to rip off writers, destroy books needlessly and resell their content through your service.
Who says they're rare and nonrecoverable? If they're bought in bulk from used booksellers, they're probably quite common titles. We throw away nearly a billion books every year. They're not sacred, and scanning a few million isn't a tragedy. People just don't like AI and want to be outraged about it.
>they're probably quite common titles. Old books could have been common back in their day, but they might not be very common today.
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Because air is extremely common and not scarce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value Similarly, wholesale used books are cheap because they are extremely common and not scarce.
They are cheap because they are old, and people are so stupid that they think if something is old, it should be worthless.
At least 80% of the anger here is misdirected, we should be blaming stupid copyright laws created over the last several decades by big-media lobbyists. Even if the person running the scanner treated every book with utmost love, museum-level care, and holy sanctity... copyright law would still require them to shred/burn the pristine antique book at the end anyway , or else they get sued for bazillions by the modern co…
Is that true? I don’t remember Google Books destroying scanned books and they scanned a ton of books.