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AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

annas-archive.gl

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Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#201

Post by guax »

tptacek wrote: post #31

These stories are weird, because actual professional specialized book dealers pulp books by the millions . People keep pointing out, and it doesn't seem to sink in, that model trainers only have use for a single copy of a book. Even if they were literally burning these books to spite you, they'd be destroying an infinitesimal fraction of the books the book trade already destroys. It is not natural in the industry to…

Its nuanced and complicated but its not fully without reason. I think there would be a compromise of using those books while playing the "we're helping preserve them part" but I don't think that even crosses the mind of most Ai CEOs in an honest way.

The crux of the issue is that it is mostly a PR problem. AI is amazing but being promoted, in the eyes of many, by the worst people imaginable. Very akin, and overlapping in many ways to the crypto crowd.

Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#203

Post by ErigmolCt »

ezfe wrote: post #2

I dislike these AI companies but let's be clear here: the copyright holders are the ones locking these books up. If they don't want to print more copies, then they could release the copyright on them. Instead, they enforce the copyright and force AI companies to shred books they want to ingest. edit: Also, an AI company would only ever care to purchase, scan, destroy a book once. Presumably many books have more than…

Copyright holders are certainly responsible for keeping unavailable works inaccessible, but shredding is mostly an industrial scanning decision, not a copyright requirement

Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#204

Post by ErigmolCt »

RajT88 wrote: post #14
ezfe wrote: post #2

I dislike these AI companies but let's be clear here: the copyright holders are the ones locking these books up. If they don't want to print more copies, then they could release the copyright on them. Instead, they enforce the copyright and force AI companies to shred books they want to ingest. edit: Also, an AI company would only ever care to purchase, scan, destroy a book once. Presumably many books have more than…

The articles I've read on this are not clear, but I strongly suspect "rare" is not the definition you and I probably use for the level of rarity of books actually being destroyed. These are not going to be the kinds of books "The Ninth Gate" resolved around - truly one of a kind. It's not good they are destroying books, but they are books which do have other copies. Just perhaps not many.

I suspect rare here often means out of print or commercially obscure, not unique

Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#205

Post by dombiscoff »

tene80i wrote: post #170
HedonicEscal8r wrote: post #11

The piracy organizations are playing 4D chess while everyone else is playing checkers. The irony of this entire situation - AI companies being legally required to shred books due to kafkaesque copyright laws, then used as a marketing tactic by Anna's Archive - is a work of art. I support Anna's Archive, by the way. Information wants to be free.

Plenty of written works aren’t “information” but rather art. Most piracy is just about people preferring not to pay for novels, TV and film.

Art is information, always.

Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#206

Post by wesleywt »

ezfe wrote: post #2

I dislike these AI companies but let's be clear here: the copyright holders are the ones locking these books up. If they don't want to print more copies, then they could release the copyright on them. Instead, they enforce the copyright and force AI companies to shred books they want to ingest. edit: Also, an AI company would only ever care to purchase, scan, destroy a book once. Presumably many books have more than…

I was wondering what the pro book shredding take was going to be. Why destroy the book after scanning? You can create a beautiful library of rare books with all the AI debt bubble.

Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#207

Post by watwut »

ezfe wrote: post #2

I dislike these AI companies but let's be clear here: the copyright holders are the ones locking these books up. If they don't want to print more copies, then they could release the copyright on them. Instead, they enforce the copyright and force AI companies to shred books they want to ingest. edit: Also, an AI company would only ever care to purchase, scan, destroy a book once. Presumably many books have more than…

Copyright allows you to sell book you have and does not force you to shread it.

They are not forced to shread them by copyright.

Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#209

Post by subscribed »

margalabargala wrote: post #135
Natsu wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AIs are weirdly bad at quoting stuff in my experience. But you'd think that the Library of Congress and such would actually prevent stuff from vanishing just by collecting it themselves.

Bad at quoting, good at digesting and regurgitating. The concepts are preserved even if quotes aren't. I'd rather a digital copy exist in someone's hands than a rotting physical copy.

But you don't have access to this copy. The digital copy is removed and all you get is paraphrased content. Some frontier models have been explicitly forbidden from recalling exact quotes in system prompt.

It almost seems like you're suggesting that having Claude generate a paraphrased book is as good as having the original book but i don't think that could be your intention?

Re: AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late

#210

Post by wesleywt »

cm2012 wrote: post #37
ezfe wrote: post #2

I dislike these AI companies but let's be clear here: the copyright holders are the ones locking these books up. If they don't want to print more copies, then they could release the copyright on them. Instead, they enforce the copyright and force AI companies to shred books they want to ingest. edit: Also, an AI company would only ever care to purchase, scan, destroy a book once. Presumably many books have more than…

Yes. I dont understand at all what AA is worried about. One copy of a book is no big deal? good will and used book stores throw out a lot more than that.

They are scanning "rare" books. I presume there are not a lot of copies left to throw out.
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