I thought they were destroyed just because they rip out the spine to scan them more easily?

The result is moronic but given the confines a judge is operating what else could he do? Is it legal for you to buy a book and tear it down? The problem is the law, and the people who vote for the legislative bodies not asking more from their representatives.

What was the supposed reasoning there? That the company can’t resell the books to profit or let others read or scan them?

Fairly certain precedent has already determined copyright is violated at the time of duplication regardless if destroyed afterword. This judge clearly didn't want to bother with this headache of a case.

The book burners of the modern age.

...so like, I'm not actually sure the copy and destroy thing is wrong. Hear me out. As an artist, the value of your work is directly related to how many copies are in circulation. You have been paid for the existing copies--you would like those to go out of circulation so that you can mint new copies without deflating the price.

The actual problem is that copyright lasts too long. Imagine if copyright was only 13 years. There's obviously no need to destroy anything that's out of copyright. Anything newer than 13 years should either still be in print, or the original author consciously decided to take it out of print, as is their prerogative.

The ruling did not say that. This has been widely misreported. The books are destroyed because it's much easier and faster to cut off the spine and use a sheet fed scanner. Non destructive scanners are much slower.

yep - if these were only scanning books & end there then most people wouldn't have complaints.

but nah they're destroying very rare, out of print books in the process.

then after - when you ask their stochastic parrot some fringe question it won't answer cz of 'safety'. when literally one could buy a book and find the answer.

Common law is insane, this is just the last example.

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

the judge didn’t rule on that specifically

the article mentions it

Too bad that website doesn't work for me. The "checking your browser" screen just reloads infinitely.

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My preferred book format is also the mass-market paperback, which the current publishing industry has decided should no longer exist, probably because they found they could not charge over $20 for them.

I can also find decades' worth of quality books for prices that sometimes drop below $1 (though popular / rare books are frequently sold for more than their original asking price now, but inflation-adjusted, that is still a good deal, and much less than a new book). There is no reason to expect that just because something was just published recently that it is worth many multiples the cost of an older book. I will still buy new books to support authors I particularly like, but as prices keep going up, I find I am becoming more and more selective.

And finally, physical books do not spy on me or show me ads, or otherwise try to coerce me into an abusive relationship, like every other form of entertainment seems to attempt to do these days.

Exactly this. I'm not entirely certain AI has anything to do with it but my last book purchases have been entirely used.

Our local independent book shop got together with a couple other dozen and started a used book platform. If I have a book I don't want, I'll let them know, if they have a buyer, I just bring it to them and get a small amount of money. They take a fee for the handling and everyone's happy. A used book is usually max half the price of new and there is a decently wide selection.

A lot of online retailers have also started stocking used books as a cheaper alternative.

I don't know about globally but in the US anything that isn't sure to be a mass market item is going to be print on demand. While there's some perfectly good print on demand out there, it's often of lower quality than conventional printing.

Is that really the case? Anecdotally but I remember new releases cost more historically.

We're no longer an economy that produces things to be consumed, but rather one that produces things that increase consumption.

Could be the makings of a dark age.

Regarding subsidy/profits: Anthropic at least seems to be on track to report a profitable Q2 2026

> Anthropic has projected revenue of at least $10.9 billion for the second quarter of 2026, more than double the previous quarter, on track for its first quarterly operating profit of $559 million.

https://www.reuters.com/business/anthropic-ipo-valuation-hin...

You should look at the first decade of other capital-intensive companies, like FedEx or spacex.

The whole point of investment in private companies is to subsidize u profitable operations. If companies came out the gate being profitable they wouldn’t need investors.

> How do they afford to buy all the books in the world?

You are on a VC website at first place, what question is this?

The same way they can afford to build new data centres - they get investment money.

> If anything this is the least dubious way to acquire training material.

Yeah, I emotionally felt a little upset because books are being destroyed and I don't like that. But rationally, this seems very much like a win-win.

The second hand bookstores are getting revenue that they otherwise wouldn't be which means they have an easier time staying in business. AI companies get their materials legally. And it possibly pushes a second publishing run which ultimately benefits authors.

I think the only way this is possibly "bad" is if a rare/hard to get book is destroyed from these ventures. That would be horrible. But I doubt that's very likely as there's almost no such thing as a rare book that AI trainers would be particularly interested in.

The issue people have with it isn't about copyright. It's about how offensive it is that AI companies are mass buying and then destroying physical books by the millions. It's the same reason people were outraged when those two fools chopped down the ancient Sycamore tree at Hadrian's Wall. "But it's just a tree!"

No, it isn't. It's much, much more than that. There is something inherently revolting about pulping billions of pages of literature. Whether they paid people for the books is completely besides the point.

The copyright law here is broken in general.

If there are only 25 copies and it's impossible to buy a new copy from the publisher, who's actually getting hurt if you "pirate" that book? How can anyone claim losses if they clearly don't want your money for a new copy.