It's completely unnecessary to destroy books when machines like this exist. This book scanner by Treventus for example, can scan fragile books without destroying it.

I don't think most people care about destroying common books to comply with copyright laws The problem here is the loss of information when you destroy rare books. This machine can scan almost 2000 pages per hour. I've seen a faster non destructive one but I doubt if it can work on all books.

the problem isn't capability to not destroy the books, the issue is that destroying the books is necessary for copyright compliance. They wouldn't do it if they had any way around it. Copyright laws need to change.

I'm not too familiar with the laws around this but is it really mandatory to destroy rare books? That seems stupid to me

@kettukaa consider the analogy of a video game on disk. you buy it, you're entitled to make use of that copy within the terms. the terms say you cant make a copy of that disk, or you cant make a digital backup, because you can then give the book or copy to someone else.

@kettukaa while that's the basis of the legal reasons as to why their copy needs to be destroyed, rather than duplicated, it doesn't really (IMO) sit right that you can then use all the assets within that within your product that you develop based on them...

@kettukaa I understand that but does copyright still apply to rare books? Why are they not public domain if it's rare? Why don't the copyright owner just keep making copies if they actually care about the IP?

@kettukaa questions for an actual IP lawyer, I am afraid, of which, I am not. I'd like to know, myself!

@kettukaa Seems like the copyright lasts for life of author + 70 years. There should be law that makes it public domain if the number of copies in circulation falls below a certain number. I don't really care if a common book gets destroyed. The loss of information is the problem here.

they WANT to destroy the books. Keeping them strictly digital means they can change whatever they want in the pdf and nobody will be able to know they changed anything. Real Ministry of Truth shit

The destruction is the point.

AI companies want to destroy the original books for the same reason Monsanto wants all fruits and vegetables to be sterile and only possible to grow from their proprietary seeds. It's almost the same act, when you think about it.

Unless your goal is to destroy books.

It's not like the AI companies don't know about that. But there's NO alternative to what Anthropic did with that time pressure. They aren't exactly known to be stupid.

destroying the books after they are scanned is the whole point to these AI companies. you cant rewrite history if the original history still exists

Google once had a talk about their Google Books (cancelled long ago) projects. A lot of engineering goes into protecting the books because the lead of the projects loves books so much.

Destroying them is the point. Gen AI only works if people are stupid and uneducated, getting rid of the original knowledge is part of that.

Well speed. 4 seconds per scan vs 2 scans per second. I agree with preserving the out of print books but chopping off the binding makes sense for speed.

The destructive scanning was allegedly instituted due to copyright issues. But destructive scanning of pre-1930s works is absolutely unnecessary for the copyright reason (they all have fallen into the public domain).

Yet another place where laws fail to actually improve a situation. Better would be a law that said you must maintain, forever, the copy of the book you scan and it may never be sold, loaned out, or given away. You will be audited every year and you have to pay for the audit. But instead, we got this. You can scan it so long as you destroy it.

I thought we had this solved in the eighties

How terribly clever of you to explain that non-destructive scanners exist, as though the people destroying the books had somehow failed to notice. They are destroying them because, under a US judge’s absurd order, they cannot legally use the scans unless the physical books are destroyed. The destruction is not a technical necessity. It is a legal contrivance imposed by someone who appears to believe that preserving knowledge becomes improper the moment technology makes preservation easy. The machine is capable of saving the book. The law, in this instance, insists upon killing it. Do try to keep up.

>Implying they themselves are not destroying the books on purpose... Less books to check, more ppl to look it on AI.

Erasing history same as they did in ancient time.

@HeftyJo Yeah, but something tells me there is a benefit to destroying the books. Not to humanity at large. To a select group of humans.

Destroying the books is a choice, and makes you wonder if that’s intentional

It’s to do with a court case that mandated they destroy books once scanned so they’re not replicating it and therefore violating copyright. It’s a stupid ass solution. But the court basically viewed scanning it as copying the book unless they also destroyed it. Leaving a single copy.

They are destroying the hard copies to avoid paying any copyright fees. Pure evil.

You have to understand, these AI “researchers” are in a fundementally Anti-Human cult. Once you understand this, ther callous, wreckless behaviour towards human society makes sense. They have already made up their minds that we are obsolete and they are birthing our replacement.

How terribly clever of you to explain that non-destructive scanners exist, as though the people destroying the books had somehow failed to notice. They are destroying them because, under a US judge’s absurd order, they cannot legally use the scans unless the physical books are destroyed. The destruction is not a technical necessity. It is a legal contrivance imposed by someone who appears to believe that preserving knowledge becomes improper the moment technology makes preservation easy. The machine is capable of saving the book. The law, in this instance, insists upon killing it. Do try to keep up.

Yes, but the underlying goal is to destroy the book so that only the digital version remain, which can be modified at will

They're destroying original non-digital sources. So they can claim knowledge access as an asset in digital currency. They know the tech is available to preserve the scanned books. They don't want to.

@bartlebystan Copyright law stupidly requires it unfortunately.

The Nazis burned the books. The Democrats just shred them. EXACT same thing. EXACT same purpose. If anyone has any rare books you shouldn't wait. Scan them youself. Distribute them as far and wide as you can in as many formats as you can.

The problem is destroying books. If you think government and companies will be loyal to the original content in the soft-totalitarian times we are living, then you are naive. They would rather change a chunk of 10 paragraphs just to avoid e.g. criticism of women, or refugees.

the intention of destroying books is much more nefarious than just saving money+time. its to control the history+stories.

also worth noting: a judge ruled destroying the original after digitizing actually helps the fair-use case, since only one copy exists at a time instead of two. so there was a legal incentive stacked on top of the cost/speed one

But if you want to create a monopoly on all human knowledge, that makes perfect sense.

Sure but given the way that Anthropic has behaved, is it so hard to believe that destroying the books in the process so they’re the only ones with the knowledge of them is by design? Sure lines up with their “only we can be trusted to have Ai” behavior

The community note says that destroying all these precious books was simply a "legal strategy" following a judge's prescription of how they could claim fair use. Good grief.

As ridiculous as this may sound, they destroy the books to avoid copyright laws.

Boomer Judge ruled you need to destroy the original to avoid infringing on the copyright by duplicating the content. Digital Millennium Copyright Act in action, as well as the general copyright and DRM law in the US fucking shit up as per usual. Right to repair is fighting this