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

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

#371

Post by squidbeak »

quietsegfault wrote: post #317
squidbeak wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A book is really just a stack of paper, I don't get the sacred feeling attached to it. Especially since books are printed in thousands to millions of identical copies. If you've read the articles covering this issue, you'll be aware the concern is over the fate of rare and out of print books, rather than your straw man (ie those available in 'thousands to millions' of copies). https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3r…

Rare and out of print does not mean important or valuable.

It doesn't automatically mean pointless or worthless, either. And it's too late to judge either way once it's been destroyed.

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

#372

Post by onionisafruit »

Filligree wrote: post #312
ZoomZoomZoom wrote: post #297

The main question is why aren't they leaking it to AA themselves? Trying to keep an edge with their training sets? Isn't it ridiculous, considering the sheer size of them and statistical insignificance of the set differences?

Because that’s illegal.

Exactly. They set up this operation specifically to comply with the letter of copyright law and defend against publisher law suits. “Leaking” to Anna’s Archive is the last thing they’re going to do.

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

#373

Post by shiandow »

cladopa wrote: post #343

It is not a big deal. Since the invention of the printing press any important book has been duplicated by thousands, tens of thousands or even million of units. Just taking one of those and "destroying them"(it is not destroyed, a digital copy with the ability of doing millions of copies is stored somewhere) is not problematic for Humanity. By the way, I always search for second hand books. Most of the books there ar…

Somehow I don't think they're looking for the books that have been copied over and over.

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

#374

Post by skeledrew »

theshrike79 wrote: post #263
skeledrew wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> copyright This is what caused the problem in the first place. If people had unrestricted access to content then the world would be a better place. And works wouldn't be so rare that it's worth AI companies buying and destroying them to gain some edge, as well as remain in legal compliance.

Copyright should be globally determined so that if I cant pay fair market value for a piece of content, it's deemed out of copyright protection and I can use whatever means to get it digitally. Like if a game isn't available for sale anywhere in my region, I can get it without breaking any laws. A book is out of print and I can't pay money for it digitally -> free game. (Why "fair market value?": So that skeezy publi…

Copyright should be banished out of existence so information, which is a trivially reproduced intangible, can be freely copied and distributed anywhere it can be useful. Instead of having the crap like what happened with the Internet Archive during/after Covid.

https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/internet-archive-loses-...

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

#375

Post by wasmitnetzen »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #319

You ask "Why destroy physical books?" I ask "Why save physical books?" If they are truly rare, then they are likely not valuable, otherwise there would be more copies or their contents could be found elsewhere. Owning and storing physical books is not free, there is a real cost. Even owning and storing the scans is not free, especially when IP rights and challenges get involved, since a scanned book with no distribut…

You're confusing the worth of the book and its content. A book can be valuable (ie a rare bible print), whereas its content is not (we have all the bible variants copied).

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

#376

Post by shiandow »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #319

You ask "Why destroy physical books?" I ask "Why save physical books?" If they are truly rare, then they are likely not valuable, otherwise there would be more copies or their contents could be found elsewhere. Owning and storing physical books is not free, there is a real cost. Even owning and storing the scans is not free, especially when IP rights and challenges get involved, since a scanned book with no distribut…

Good point, why waste time deciphering old badly burnt scrolls when anything worthwhile should have been preserved.

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

#377

Post by frm88 »

tptacek wrote: post #78
runarberg wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am thinking about a long essay Icelandic author Þórbergur Þórðarson wrote to his pals abroad, and were left abroad. I am thinking about a photo book by an Indonesian naturalist who is famous on Bali, and took amazing photos of wildlife on Sulawesi in 1926, and colored in, and somehow ended up in New Jersey in the 1980s. I am thinking about a collection of essays written by a teenage J.D. Salinger who he left unsign…

You're trying to imagine rare valuable books and then fantasizing about AI companies destroying them, but what's actually happening here is that AI companies are acquiring, digitizing, and then pulping the instruction manuals to 1983-vintage copy machines. This is all such a special-pleading argument. You know what other institution snatches up books and destroys them at huge scale? Public library systems. People cle…

You're trying to imagine rare valuable books and then fantasizing about AI companies destroying them, but what's actually happening here is that AI companies are acquiring, digitizing, and then pulping the instruction manuals to 1983-vintage copy machines.

Source? You state that in a tone that implies you have verifiable knowlege of this. All the information I found says that the exact number, titles and authors are under NDA.

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

#378

Post by phoronixrly »

dqv wrote: post #370
shrubble wrote: post #349

AI companies could certainly release the scans of any book that is no longer covered by copyright in the USA, for free download and get some positive publicity for a change. I do wonder who is running PR at the major AI companies, as they seem rather insensate to how they are perceived...

The other thing they could be doing is using some of that lobbying money to try to reform copyright law to allow them to release the scans that are still covered. It would likewise earn goodwill from a lot of people.

They could be, however that would weaken their position as the sole source of knowledge which seems to me is half the purpose of their book destroying initiative.

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

#379

Post by sajithdilshan »

cladopa wrote: post #343

It is not a big deal. Since the invention of the printing press any important book has been duplicated by thousands, tens of thousands or even million of units. Just taking one of those and "destroying them"(it is not destroyed, a digital copy with the ability of doing millions of copies is stored somewhere) is not problematic for Humanity. By the way, I always search for second hand books. Most of the books there ar…

Exactly, also all those physical books would anyways get molded, eaten by moths or just naturally decay. It's not like the AI companies are obliterating every copy of every single book.

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

#380

Post by tsukurimashou »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #319

You ask "Why destroy physical books?" I ask "Why save physical books?" If they are truly rare, then they are likely not valuable, otherwise there would be more copies or their contents could be found elsewhere. Owning and storing physical books is not free, there is a real cost. Even owning and storing the scans is not free, especially when IP rights and challenges get involved, since a scanned book with no distribut…

> If they are truly rare, then they are likely not valuable

"likely" being the keyword here, what about heavily censored books?

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