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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

#591

Post by hahn-kev »

PartiallyTyped wrote: post #358
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, otherwise there would be more copies or their contents could be found elsewhere. The Gutenberg bible is rare, its content is not rare, and some would argue that the content itself is not valuable, and yet the Gutenberg bible is valuable. Same can be said about many books.

Right but is an AI company going to destroy a Gutenberg bible? No, as you said the content is not rare, and that's what they want.

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

#592

Post by fluoridation »

margalabargala wrote: post #516
fluoridation wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you have a translation, do you have the book? No, you have a translation. >Even if, like the Odyssey, there are hundreds of wildly varying translations? Precisely why translations are not considered equivalent to the original text. >What about an abridged copy? What about the Sparknotes version? An abridged copy is not a copy of the unabridged version. >If you have a copy of Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, do yo…

My opinion is different from yours. If I have a translation of a book, I think I have more of that book than if I had nothing at all. It's fuzzy.

You don't have the book, you have someone else's interpretation of the book's contents, re-expressed into a language you can read. Both steps can involve a loss or distortion of information, either because the translator doesn't fully grasp the original language or context, or because in the re-expression they chose to leave out details that were relevant to you. The more distant the original language to yours, the more translation involves interpretation, too. A translation is really not too different from a commentary; it's just a different text.

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

#593

Post by bix6 »

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”.

That’s just not true. There is a clearly a right thing to do in many circumstances.

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

#594

Post by madibo3156 »

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…

Nobody's said it in this thread so I'll drop it here where you ask "Why save physical books?"—

The problem isn't with morals or copyright. What we're up in arms about is case law. Past rulings have implied that destruction of books significantly contributes to the process being "transformative". This encourages companies to destroy the books. I think this is really dumb.

Why save physical books? It's because the reason to destroy them isn't good. If you think there's too many bad books out there, that's a different argument. Maybe your fight is against consumerism, I don't know.

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

#596

Post by throwaw12 »

America is interesting.

* download and publish a book as an individual -> 100% lifetime jail + 10x your whole lifetime earnings/revenue - Aaron Swartz

* download and publish a book as a company -> fine 1% of revenue

* scan and publish a book as an individual -> legal issues, 100x fines of your yearly 50k donations

* scan and "publish/train" a book as a company -> okay, lets ban chinese models, they are distilling your model

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

#597

Post by infecto »

pessimizer wrote: post #582
infecto wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Puts the burden on government to store what is probably 90% worthless material. Copyright should really be amended so that once out of print and a grace period it’s free use. I am probably more of an anarchist in this regard. Similar to my belief that anyone should be able to ingest any data you put online, once a book is no longer being print it should be able to be used for commercial or personal use for free. Simi…

> Puts the burden on government to store what is probably 90% worthless material. That's what governments are for.

Since we are talking about a US perspective do you have evidence that backs this up? It just comes across as an empty statement. The government is the will of the people and I personally like the idea of fixing copyright instead of making the government store how to use windows 95 books.

Sure some governments and opinions would say so but you’re making a statement of zero impact. Fix the underlying copyright laws don’t create more rules.

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

#599

Post by margalabargala »

fluoridation wrote: post #592
margalabargala wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion is different from yours. If I have a translation of a book, I think I have more of that book than if I had nothing at all. It's fuzzy.

You don't have the book, you have someone else's interpretation of the book's contents, re-expressed into a language you can read. Both steps can involve a loss or distortion of information, either because the translator doesn't fully grasp the original language or context, or because in the re-expression they chose to leave out details that were relevant to you. The more distant the original language to yours, the m…

That sounds to me like fuzzily having a version of the book. That is, it's more like having the book, than having nothing would be.

You seem to be arguing that a translation, etc is not literally having the book, which is something that has always been my stance as well.

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

#600

Post by pfdietz »

Goronmon wrote: post #441
snickerbockers wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why are so many people assuming there is exactly one copy of all of these important books available, and that Anthropic is destroying the lone copy? Why are you assuming that each book gets scanned exactly one time and then never again? And why are you assuming that out-of-print books remain easily accessible so long as not every copy has been destroyed? >Your local library throws out books every year and nobody tho…

As for books that haven't fallen apart from being used as intended and merely are no longer desired, my local library generally sells them off at bargain prices. What happens when the books don't sell?

Our local library-connected biannual book sale puts a large dumpster, about the size of an 18-wheel truck trailer, outside the warehouse where the sale is conducted. At the end of the sale it gets filled to the brim with waste inked cellulose, and sits there open in the weather until it's taken away for disposal.
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