Amazon, which started off selling books, is destroying rare texts to train AI

91 pointsposted 5 hours ago
by rzk
(techcrunch.com)

15 Comments

littlecranky67

3 hours ago

Well they have to destroy them after scanning, else it is a copyright violation. Maybe not in the US, but in a lot of jurisdictions you are allowed to make copies/scans of Books, CDs etc. but if you sell the media, you have to delete the copy.

Given that anthropic was just fined a $1bn fee for torrenting/piracy, we cant really blame the companies for shredding the books after a scan. We should blame copyright laws.

kleton

3 hours ago

> Well they have to destroy them after scanning, else it is a copyright violation.

I think this is the "an undercover cop has to tell you they are police if you ask them" of AI law

edgyquant

2 hours ago

So push back and explain how that user is wrong?

PlunderBunny

2 hours ago

I wouldn't characterise it as 'undercover cop...' but perhaps it might be fairer to say that until it's tested in court, no-one knows, so they (Amazon etc) are taking the 'safe' path of destroying the books?

littlecranky67

2 hours ago

Well, trying anything in court is definitely what they want to avoid. I mean, what is your suggestion here - should they buy the book, scan it, then sell or give it to someone else? That IS a copyright violation in itself, no need to try anything in court.

Whether or not AI training or replication of the text through the model is a copyright violation, is a whole different but unrelated question.

PlunderBunny

an hour ago

I don’t think it’s a sure thing that training a model on a work is considered a duplication in the sense that ripping a CD might be for example - unless I’ve missed something, that’s what hasn’t been decided in court. I think they see destroying the book as the safest course of action for them.

Analemma_

4 hours ago

There's nothing in this article supporting the claim that rare books are being destroyed, it just has a link to a paywalled article from 404 Media.

ajb

4 hours ago

Do you really think they aren't? Do you think Amazon are carefully culling rare books from the list?

Although, we have to face the fact that the 'indie' book industry isn't necessarily preserving stuff either. I was recently in an old fashioned book shop in Charing Cross road, and they were selling old pictures as well as books. I was going to buy one as a present until I realised that they were pages that had been cut out of some book, because they could get more selling them separately.

Analemma_

4 hours ago

The figure I've heard quoted is that 640,000 tons of used books (not 640,000 books, 640,000 tons of books) are shredded/pulped every year for lack of finding a buyer. I assume that very few of these are rare books.

I think in the situation where the background rate is 640,000 tons of books being destroyed per year, the burden of proof is on the one making the claim that Amazon is destroying rare books, and doing so at a higher rate than they're being destroyed already.

alexthedigger

4 hours ago

Tech crunch used to be tech news, now it’s ai slop with a biased agenda.

devindotcom

4 hours ago

no one uses ai for writing at tc. you're gonna end up chicken-littling yourself

Apocryphon

3 hours ago

It used to be breathless startup hype and gossip, which it might still be in some capacity.