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points by will5421 2 days ago | 0 comments

And destroying!?

What do you think bookstores do?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stripped_book

> A stripped book is a mass market paperback that has been stripped of its cover in order to be recycled. The covers are returned to the publisher as evidence that the books have been destroyed and to obtain a credit on the purchase price.[1] The books are meant to be destroyed by pulping but some find their way to street merchants, sometimes by illegal means, and are resold.[2]

I grew up reading books with this ditty in them:

> If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

Those books certainly weren't scanned before being pulped. Would've been illegal. Really, the big thing that destroys books is the copyright term being as long as it is.

[–] DonaldPShimoda 2 days ago

AI companies weren't buying up tons of unsold mass-market materials, and I think it's disingenuous to even make the comparison.

What was going on recently was AI companies were specifically seeking out rare — or sometimes irreplaceable — books to supplement their data sets (and hopefully getting a leg up on their competitors). The destruction of the books wasn't the point, it was just a consequence of the business-oriented realization that they could scan the contents of more books faster if they just chopped off the bindings rather than investing the time to care for the books and keep them intact (plus supposedly playing along with copyright law by "only having one copy of the copyrighted material").

[–] msla 1 day ago

> What was going on recently was AI companies were specifically seeking out rare

A lot of worthless books are rare. That was what people in the trade call "Clickbait"; in that it isn't technically a lie but it sure ain't the truth.

> The destruction of the books wasn't the point

It was to the people who shared the stories for clicks and outrage farming.

[–] paradox460 2 days ago

Every tor SF book I've ever read had that. Neat little bit of history

[–] layer8 2 days ago

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ai-companies-de...

https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/amazon-destroyi...

[–] frozenseven 2 days ago

So, just like libraries and retailers already do?

[–] matkoniecz 2 days ago

From my understanding, they are legally obligated to in this case.

[–] shevy-java 2 days ago

The Holy Inquisition was also required to burn witches in the medieval era.

That does not really make it a law though.

[–] Natsu 2 days ago

It's copyright law, they're not supposed to have extra copies of the work, just one.