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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

#231

Post by [deleted] »

skeledrew wrote: post #197
mslt wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To play devils advocate, completely on the terms of your argument, would it be better for that particular human artifact to be shredded and its contents melted into an anonymized data pool, or for it to exist in a museum archive, in its original form, such that future generations can better understand what it was like to be alive in 1994? I’d personally choose the latter, especially given that the 1994 tv guide is no…

A museum - or any other building - can only hold so much physical stuff. How much of it do you really want preserved? How do you choose what is preserved (it's an eventually inevitable choice)? Do you save the 1980s stuff but not the 90s? Or save every even/odd year? Some other method? How much direct access do you think people need to pre-digital history?

[deleted]

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

#232

Post by skeledrew »

annapanna wrote: post #226
skeledrew wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do it because, for each work, they bought one copy, which they scan and no longer need the physical version of, and would be in copyright violation if they keep more copies than they bought.

>and would be in copyright violation if they keep more copies than they bought. They can contact the copyright holder and ask/buy a license to make multiple copies.

For what?

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

#233

Post by skeledrew »

impossiblefork wrote: post #221
skeledrew wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't they be allowed to do whatever they want with the copy they bought, and so legally own? Isn't that the entire purpose behind "copy right"?

Of course they shouldn't. If the books are rare enough there's a shared cultural value that is being destroyed.

Why should they buy the books then if they can't do what they want with them? Just leave them wherever they are to rot and eventually be unceremoniously dumped anyway, without being preserved in any form. Some things are just unavoidable.

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

#234

Post by Gander5739 »

ErigmolCt wrote: post #202

A genuinely useful project would identify publications that are actually rare, poorly catalogued, or held by only a few libraries, then prioritize those for careful preservation

See https://annas-archive.gl/blog/worldcat-editions-and-holdings..., nearer the end

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

#235

Post by steelframe »

warkdarrior wrote: post #199
alightsoul wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ai companies don't use ebooks, because they are more expensive than second hand books

On Amazon right now, retail prices for e-book copies are higher than for the corresponding paperbacks.

This is exactly why Amazon has also been doing this acquisition and destructive scanning of millions of books for some time now.

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

#236

Post by bondarchuk »

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…

We the people in the society who have the power to make laws through democratic means are the ones locking these books up.

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

#238

Post by Xunjin »

guax wrote: post #188
tene80i wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or not being able to. Regional licensing, missing and shuffling content. To watch the world cup I had to spin up a VM in Brazil to watch it with Portuguese narration because the free transmissions are region locked. I would gladly pay 5 bucks for it if it was possible otherwise and avoid the hassle.

We humans, often forget that logistics is always the bottleneck in any Industry.

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

#239

Post by tkel »

shakna wrote: post #62
breezybottom wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since when do AI companies care about the law? Most of their training data is pirated.

The headlines about destruction came not soon after they got rapped on the knuckles and told "no more pirating".

No, the destructive book scanning was happening before that.

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

#240

Post by footydude »

jacobo37 wrote: post #7
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…

this is plainly stupid ... many of these books are likely to have no current publisher nor any way to "reprint" the book. "ai" companies are simply burning our cultural context ...

> "ai" companies are simply burning our cultural context ...

Most developed countries have a 'legal deposit' system with a national archive/national library that requires publishers to send a copy of their works to them. They've existed in some form for centuries in some countries.

Example for the UK - British Library guidance: https://www.bl.uk/services/legal-deposit

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