AI companies destroy physical books – let's scan rare books before it's too late • Hacker News Board

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

#551

Post by FeloniousHam » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

TFNA wrote: post #266

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.

Indeed, art. And it is a pretty common position that all people should have access to art and culture. Add up the cost of buying the DVD/Blu-Ray releases for the 1500 or so films that make up the canon of cinema. That's a sum of money daunting even for people in developed countries, let alone most of the world. Piracy is going to be the realistic solution. (And before you say "Use the library", you know well-stocked…

> And it is a pretty common position that all people should have access to art and culture.

Access to _all_ art and "culture"? For free?

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

#552

Post by beering » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

sergimansilla wrote: post #506

starkd wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to see someone making this point. I'm confused by the panic, because they are making it out like AI companies are destroying every copy of the book. They only need one, and they destroy it after scanning it only because they don't want to store them all. And storing or archiving all these books is not a trivial task.

No, they are destroying them because that’s the way that they can keep a digital copy legally.

This is not true. Google Books does not destroy books. No court has ruled that you must destroy books to legally keep a digital copy.

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

#553

Post by pmarreck » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

ziyadb wrote: post #299

I was surprised to read that Anthropic (and probably other data / model companies) are doing this and it's extremely disappointing, as working towards the benefit of humanity is not an exclusive right / domain of theirs but rather, is a shared responsibility and mission carried by all of humanity itself as a collective responsibility. Thus, the preservation of this knowledge, its availability, and accessibility are t…

> From a historical precedent standpoint, this is akin to the burning of the library of Alexandria

Hyperbole much?

Does the fact that they're being converted to an immutable digital permanent record for all time mean anything to you? Because as far as I know, the works lost to the Library of Alexandria were wiped out of existence, not simply transformed into a more durable form!

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

#554

Post by letmetweakit » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

juiceland wrote: post #485

Why are people acting like books can’t be reprinted?

You have to have a sample to be able to reprint it.

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

#555

Post by clarionbell » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

In my experience, when someone mentions burning library of Alexandria, they are either exaggerating, or have a poor grasp of history. Usually it's both. This post, the discussion, do not change my mind.

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

#556

Post by JKCalhoun » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 2:19 PM UTC

michaelsbradley wrote: post #514

ziyadb wrote: post #299

I was surprised to read that Anthropic (and probably other data / model companies) are doing this and it's extremely disappointing, as working towards the benefit of humanity is not an exclusive right / domain of theirs but rather, is a shared responsibility and mission carried by all of humanity itself as a collective responsibility. Thus, the preservation of this knowledge, its availability, and accessibility are t…

> From a historical precedent standpoint, this is akin to the burning of the library of Alexandria Are you referring to the burning of the Serapeum in AD 391 or the warehouse fires in 48 BC?

Is there a difference with regard to the metaphor?

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

#557

Post by andsoitis » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 2:20 PM UTC

p-e-w wrote: post #510

WarmWash wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the major things you learn as you get older is that there is a huge abundance of people who say the right thing, and a much smaller group of people who do the right thing. The internet made this even worse by celebrating people who only have to say the right thing.

This would be more convincing if there was any agreement on what the right thing supposedly is. The major lesson I myself learned as I got older is that “you should do the right thing” is a rephrasing of “you should do what I want you to do”.

> This would be more convincing if there was any agreement on what the right thing supposedly is.

The internet has amplified voices who say things to signal rather than do things to change.

That's orthogonal to knowing what "the right thing" is.

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

#558

Post by beering » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 2:20 PM UTC

eloisant wrote: post #504

fortran77 wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are destroying them because it’s easier to scan them if you slice the binding.

I didn't fully understand why but apparently there is also a legal reason to destroy the books, it makes it them less likely to be considered copyright infringement.

Not really. Selling the book onward does seem legally dubious but legally nothing (yet) prevents you from storing the book in a warehouse. obviously it’s cheaper to dispose of them.

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

#559

Post by JKCalhoun » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 2:20 PM UTC

LaGrange wrote: post #511

ziyadb wrote: post #299

I was surprised to read that Anthropic (and probably other data / model companies) are doing this and it's extremely disappointing, as working towards the benefit of humanity is not an exclusive right / domain of theirs but rather, is a shared responsibility and mission carried by all of humanity itself as a collective responsibility. Thus, the preservation of this knowledge, its availability, and accessibility are t…

> I was surprised to read that Anthropic (and probably other data / model companies) are doing this and it's extremely disappointing, as working towards the benefit of humanity Look, others talked about how this fetishising of paper books is quite silly (though I don't like it when the destructive scanning is just so one could feed it into a chatbot) but I have to say, all I can do after reading the above sentence is…

It's probably good to remind ourselves though of how disgusting they can be.

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

#560

Post by JKCalhoun » Fri, Aug 21, 2026, 2:20 PM UTC

SkyBelow wrote: post #350

ziyadb wrote: post #299

I was surprised to read that Anthropic (and probably other data / model companies) are doing this and it's extremely disappointing, as working towards the benefit of humanity is not an exclusive right / domain of theirs but rather, is a shared responsibility and mission carried by all of humanity itself as a collective responsibility. Thus, the preservation of this knowledge, its availability, and accessibility are t…

>Despite the copyright restrictions that are forcing companies to do this, they should maintain archives that are publicly available. Aren't the copyright laws forcing them to do this the very ones that would make such archives illegal? The books that could be in such an archive are the books that don't need to be destroyed.

Copyright law eating itself…