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 one copy.
breezybottom•12m ago
They don't "force" anything. Trillion dollar AI companies and their owners have as much agency as book publishers.
tptacek•8m ago
To do what?
zmmmmm•11m ago
It is also the case that the copyright holders are often putting restrictions around use of electronic forms that are driving the desire to use physical copies. I doubt AI companies would use a single physical book if they could avoid it - absent the legal cloud over electronic rights.
I have no evidence but I can't help suspecting in part the publicity around this is driven in part by rights holders that want to force AI companies back to e-books where they can force them into licensing deals.
alightsoul•10m ago
Ai companies don't use ebooks, because they are more expensive than second hand books
breezybottom•6m ago
They absolutely do. Meta torrented 81 terabytes of ebooks. They just have no incentive to pay when the law looks the other way.
jacobo37•11m ago
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 ...
HedonicEscal8r•8m ago
If only this complaint was being posted by an organization ideologically opposed to copyright itself!
RajT88•7m ago
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.
imperio59•16m ago
Getting 10 million people to do anything is really, really hard. Getting 10 million people to spend hours scanning a book (which takes a really long time with a home scanner) sounds impossible :(
Pretty funny that they just took Anna’s archive and ingested it.
As for the story: they make it sound like AI companies are buying up all existing copies of rare books and stealing the knowledge, which isn’t the case, as far as I know.
HedonicEscal8r•8m ago
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.
shakna•7m ago
[delayed]
landgenoot•4m ago
Isn't this a matter of regulation? I'm not sure about US, but in EU you have old houses/buildings that are protected. Sure, you can buy them, but you can't modify or destroy them (being cultural heritage).
ezfe•16m ago
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 one copy.
breezybottom•12m ago
tptacek•8m ago
zmmmmm•11m ago
I have no evidence but I can't help suspecting in part the publicity around this is driven in part by rights holders that want to force AI companies back to e-books where they can force them into licensing deals.
alightsoul•10m ago
breezybottom•6m ago
jacobo37•11m ago
HedonicEscal8r•8m ago
RajT88•7m ago
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.