AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books | Hacker News Reader

AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books

heraldscotland.com

Who says they're rare and nonrecoverable? If they're bought in bulk from used booksellers, they're probably quite common titles.

We throw away nearly a billion books every year. They're not sacred, and scanning a few million isn't a tragedy. People just don't like AI and want to be outraged about it.

And... at the very most... each AI company destroys ONE copy of a book.

Good thing there are hardly any AI companies these days.

I know! This must have lead to the destruction of AT LEAST 10 copies of the Twilight books.

OH THE HUMANITY!!!

Well, if they're bought in bulk, there's gonna be some duplicates. They probably don't know what they're buying until they start scanning.

But still, the number of duplicates will be inversely proportational to the rarity of the book. Lots of copies of James Patterson and Twilight, probably few or zero rare 16th-century manuscripts.

I would assume the very first step would be cataloging the author, title, and revision of the book so hundreds of thousands of hours of time are not wasted scanning duplicates.

They probably still throw away the duplicates even if they don't scan them, because the wholesale value of a used paperback of the Da Vinci Code is like half a cent.

>they're probably quite common titles.

Old books could have been common back in their day, but they might not be very common today.

The books you will find on a bulk sale are, by definition, the ones that are very common today.

Read it again. These aren't books that were bought in bulk bt bookstores.

They're rare books that are bought in bulk for scanning.

The analogy is imagine someone buying near-extinct animals from any source in bulk, not kittens from average pet shops.

>They're rare books that are bought in bulk for scanning.

Nope! Actually this article has a list of the books they were scanning:

https://fortune.com/2026/07/31/dutch-bookseller-ai-spam-phis...

>provided Fortune with the email and subsequent spreadsheet containing 3,001 titles, mostly published between 2020 and 2021 by academic publishers like Emerald Publishing, Elsevier, Wiley, Routledge and Oxford University Press, and ranging from business and education to engineering, public policy and medicine.

So not rare, mostly recent textbooks. The headline of this article is a lie designed to outrage you.

I see. That's good to know, though you could have led with that! I was mostly calling you out because it seemed you were misrepresenting the article's argument, whereas you now seem to have no problem with their reasoning of bulk destruction, but simply question the premise of whether the books are indeed rare in the first place.

I have to say though, while I'm relieved we're not destroying in bulk books from the 1900s, nevertheless, just because a book is from the 2020s doesn't necessarily make it a plentiful resource (I've often been in a situation where fairly recent textbooks I wanted are out of print and are only sold in old bookshops, or for exorbitant prices on ebay, for instance). So ragebait quality article or not, I still acknowledge the issue.

As I said to another person above, I would still feel more comfortable after this discussion, if the company had made a statement that non-destructive scanning methods will be pursued in books with less than X books in circulation.

These articles are designed to create maximal outrage, and they can mislead you into thinking the problem is far worse than it really is. Conflating the nature of the books (between "rare" and "common") is exactly the sort of things these articles do.

Also, the companies are required to do this by the government/law, they are not doing this because they want to destroy old knowledge. They are making that knowledge more widely available in a digital form.

>They are making that knowledge more widely available in a digital form.

Where can I access the digital form of the destroyed books? You should know since you made this statement, right?

Reread what he wrote

Yea, and I don't think I missed something. To be clear, I don't want the "knowledge in the book", I want the content of the book itself so that I can form my own knowledge. So don't not want an LLMs regurgitation of the book...

And what about fiction? I don't want an LLM's "interpretation", I want the real thing.

Is that made available somewhere?

You are not being prevented from accessing another copy of the book to get that knowledge.

> You are not being prevented from accessing another copy of the book to get that knowledge.

Except in the (potentually rare) situation that a book is rare, which brings us back into full circle in the discussion.

So, ragebait article or not, we have identified an issue if reasonable importance.

E.g. if there was an official statement that non-destructive scanning were to be used in titles with less than X copies in circulation,I would feel more comfortable.

The clear conclusion from all the articles I've read is that no truly rare books are being destroyed in this process. That is an intentional technique used by the article authors to manipulate readers into being outraged.

That means that they were already getting destroyed somewhat and not being recoverable, even without AIs. If there is just one or very few copies of a book or it ends in a particular buyer, or in warehouse prone to fires, not surviving to floods, rats or whatever.

> That means that they were already getting destroyed somewhat and not being recoverable, even without AIs. If there is just one or very few copies of a book or it ends in a particular buyer, or in warehouse prone to fires, not surviving to floods, rats or whatever.

There's a difference between accidental or negligent destruction, and planned and deliberate destruction.

You're describing the former, but these AI companies are doing the latter.

For model train sets, its often the cheapest most common ones that become the most valuable decades later. The expensive sets were cared for and so many survived, but the cheap ones were played with and tossed into the bin and then few survive in good condition. So because something was once common does not mean it can't become rare later on.

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2025/06/anthropic-destroyed-milli...

ars from a month ago is a bit less emotional about it:

"The court documents don’t indicate that any rare books were destroyed in this process—Anthropic purchased its books in bulk from major retailers"

but also brings up a reasonable point that there are good ways to do this type of scanning non-destructively.

The scanning process they use is _intentionally_ destructive, not accidentally destructive.

It's not because they hate books or something. It's literally to stay in the law due to the legal rulings surrounding AI companies and copyright.

If they had the option of not destroying the books without any risk of further lawsuit, they would. They aren't like some crazy people that just want to destroy books.

Cutting off the binding of the book to separate the pages makes them easier to scan, that's part of the reason why they do it destructively.

>The scanning process they use is _intentionally_ destructive, not accidentally destructive.

i am aware. i am saying that there are options to _intentionally_ be non-destructive.

>They aren't like some crazy people that just want to destroy books.

i didnt say or imply they were

> i am saying that there are options to _intentionally_ be non-destructive.

Yes, techniques exist, but they are not "reasonable" here, because for these books the risk/penalties of copyright law require them to be destroyed after the scan anyway.

The non-destructive scanning (if you follow the ArsTechnica links) was done for different books with a different legal situation so that they could be preserved.

The problem is the 'options to be intentionally non-destructive' come with legal liabilities that don't exist if they destroy the original copy.

sure, i agree with that. all they content the pirated originally also came with legal liabilities.

they weighed the risk and made a decision. my comment was not calling them "crazy people" for making that decision. i thought my comment was pretty neutral.

Your comment was fine, I didn't think you were implying that at all. I was just trying to clarify that they aren't choosing to do that for arbitrary reasons.

But you're implying that they could use non-destructive means and choose not to.

yeah, i think they could have.

they weren't shy about pirating content before, and i think there is a decent legal argument they could have made. non-destructive scanning is also probably more expensive. so they made a business decision based on risk (and i would assume cost).

i dont think that makes them "crazy people"

They do have the option to not destroy the books. Their hand isn’t being forced. You can choose not to be scumbags just as you can choose to use a legal loophole to rip off writers, destroy books needlessly and resell their content through your service.

This benefits me personally by having the information in the books freely available through the AI, which anyone can use. I'm all for it.

It would benefit me personally to take whatever I need from the grocery store without paying. I don't do that though.

If books were precious physical objects of great value, why is that not reflected in their prices? Used books are usually worthless.

And if their inherent value was so great, regardless of supply or use, wouldn't we be able to churn out infinite value by just printing enormous nunbers of copies and storing them?

This absurd consequence shows the outrage here is without rational foundation. It's feelings run amok. Feels are not a good way to think, people.

>why is that not reflected in their prices?

Because the consumers are stupid and think being "new" is worth a lot more, for some reason, when it comes to art/literature/movies. So they are willing to pay more for new stuff that could be mediocre.

I would really pay 10 times the price of some old books, but consumer demand is nearly zero because they are old, so they have gone out of print...

These books ARE new. New-ish.

They are all books from 2020 and 2021.

If air is so valuable to you, why don't you pay premium for it? Not that it's comparable to books, but it has the same presupposition as your question.

If someone had posted "OMG Google is using up air" I'd have been equally contemptuous.

I'm kind of surprised we aren't hearing that as an argument against burning fossil fuels, actually.

Because air is extremely common and not scarce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value

Similarly, wholesale used books are cheap because they are extremely common and not scarce.

They are cheap because they are old, and people are so stupid that they think if something is old, it should be worthless.

When your justification for your idea is that everyone else is stupid, maybe you need to reevaluate who is being stupid.

I didn't say everyone else is stupid. I said (or meant) consumers show largely/collectively stupid behavior that I described.

Just most people. Your quibble doesn't save you.

Why should anyone take your personal idiosyncratic definition of value seriously, especially when it leads to absurd consequences? The simplest explanation here is that you have just not expended the effort to think things through.

> Why should anyone take your personal idiosyncratic definition of value seriously...

so that they get more value out of their $$$...or else feel free to part all your cash on the newest piece of shit. I don't really care. An idiot and his money is soon parted. Tale as old as time. Suit yourselves...

Or maybe just not. Galileo comes to mind.

This was a very nonsensical response. It's not analogous to the argument being made, nor it add any value to the conversation.

If we value things according to their monetary value we must conclude that Elon musk is more valuable than every teacher in Americas labor for the next decade. Economic value is oft divorced entirely from any notion of real value.

What you are describing derisively as "feels" is actually nuance the very essence of intelligence is not reducing complexity to tapioca.

Destroying the last copy of a rare book reduces the sum total of human knowledge even if its not one already of note.

Historically current thinking isn't the best and most accurate judgement of value. We cherish many works that were not notable upon publication or even in the author's lifetime.

Previously the works were distributed and hard to lose all at once now they are possibly inaccurately scanned and even that slightly lossy data may disappear all at once in a wave bankruptcy especially if the economy crashes again as seems to happen every 10 to 20 years.

I suggest you ruminate instead of patting yourself on the back

Equating people to inanimate objects is a remarkable argument. How about we reject that out of hand.

It's not. It's an excellent example that economic value!= value.

Your facile dodge isn't an argument and suggests you lack one.

I find it interesting that no one cared if these books were destroyed before, but now they are suddenly valuable and worth preserving?

These are books that were sitting in some warehouse waiting to be destroyed until it was discovered that AI companies would buy them in bulk. Most of these books are 'rare' because no one bought them, so they didn't print many, and the ones they did print weren't sold so they sat in a warehouse.

I feel like people are imagining some rare, handwritten book transcribed by some 17th century monk. That is not what these are, they are part of the millions of published books that never get any traction, are barely sold, and then are destined to fade into obscurity as they are eventually cycled out of the warehouse and into the incinerator.

But now that AI companies want to add a 'scan them first' step before destroying them, they are suddenly precious and must be preserved?

AI companies getting involved makes it newsworthy

At least 80% of the anger here is misdirected, we should be blaming stupid copyright laws created over the last several decades by big-media lobbyists.

Even if the person running the scanner treated every book with utmost love, museum-level care, and holy sanctity... copyright law would still require them to shred/burn the pristine antique book at the end anyway, or else they get sued for bazillions by the modern companies that "own" the book's contents.

Is that true? I don’t remember Google Books destroying scanned books and they scanned a ton of books.

Follow up: I can’t seem to find any ruling that says you need to destroy the scanned book. Destroying the book might bolster your case in a copyright lawsuit, but the law does not require it afaict. I doubt you would lose a lawsuit simply because you put the book in a locked warehouse after scanning it.

IANAL, but I think you are allowed to copy work for non-commercial use.

I don't think so. I believe teachers (for example) have gotten in trouble over this.

It's very dependent on jurisdiction (and if you're rich, or a big company).

In UK there's no non-commercial use exception at all.

In USA it can fall under Fair Use, commercial nature is not the sole measure though.

In my jurisdiction (Brazil) there is non-commercial use, but most people don't know about it.

You are mixing the concepts of fair use and non-commercial use.

Non-commercial use is not allowed in Brazil. But Brazil does have some fair use exceptions (like most countries that signed the international agreement on intellectual property).

In Brazil it's illegal for me to make copies of a book and distribute it for free on the streets, for example. It's 100% non-commercial, but still illegal.

The term you want to Google on is "fair use", and be prepared for a nightmare of complexity and fuzzy borders if you want to really learn about it.

"Non-commercial" use can relate to one particular aspect of fair use, but there definitely is no blanket "you can copy work for non-commercial use" proviso in copyright law.

It fell off the front page but here's a relevant story from today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49123300

They broke copyright law. Too big to care, it something.

Some legislation got pushed through in some jurisdictions to allow them to claim things were "orphaned works".

yes it's true, us court has ruled destructive scanning is required to make it "fair use" (ianal, etc etc) - https://www.ropesgray.com/en/insights/alerts/2025/06/from-bo...

Are these books being destroyed in the US?

Even without copyright isssues Google would have been perfectly fine in destructively scanning these books.

Personally, I end up throwing away a decent amount of books that the book donation people won't take. Especially old technical books. Textbooks from 2001. These headlines just don't tell me anything useful. "Rare" doesn't mean anything.

Please, give me one example of an interesting and unique book that the AI companies have destroyed.

Oreilley’s 1999 classic: Learning Python.

They destroyed it, there's nowhere to buy it or read it for the public?

Not sure if that was a whoosh?

£5 .. don't think it's destroyed .. https://www.abebooks.co.uk/Learning-Python-Mark-Lutz-OReilly...

People underestimate the massive number of completely useless books that have been published over the centuries. Any significant historical or social contributions are not in danger of going away.

This is one of those articles that goes out of its way to enrage people, when the underlying reality is far simpler, more straightforward, and less nefarious.

I like how you get downvoted by the AI haters for a logical take.

I do too. But my hope is that by calmly repeating the truth the AI haters might realize that they are being manipulated.

Discussed on 27.jul.2026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49068738 515 comments

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49068738

headline is misleading destroy implies the work is lost but AI companies are scanning them to preserve the contents and learn from it and which we will collectively benefit and add to the GDP

it is very common to break the back bones of books for mass scanning, I use one at home, I find old books offline, usually people try to donate them to the library but i buy it from them for scanning. It's the only way to economically and fast, there's no good solution beside cutting the spine and feed them into my scanner.

22 Jul 2026 14:52:41 UTC

AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They''re Free of AI Slop

https://www.404media.co/ai-companies-are-buying-tons-of-old-...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49007769

[ok]

25 Jul 2026 04:16:09 UTC

AI vendors are destroying rare books to feed the chatbot Pivot to AI

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/07/23/ai-vendors-are-destroying...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49044469

[dead]

27 Jul 2026 08:09:08 UTC

AI companies are buying books and destroying them