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Comment by karim79 | Hacker News Reader

Buy as many books as you want but please don't burn after scanning.

It’s more that they remove the spine of the book to more quickly, accurately, and easily scan through the pages. The book’s structural integrity is destroyed in the scanning process which is why they have to discard them when they are done.

Isn't the "burn after scanning" due to copyright? It seems like destructively scanning was an explicitly allowed method in Bartz v Anthropic as transformative fair use.

Unless somebody steps in and prohibits it they will do it, because somehow that's most cost efficient.

Yeah. It somehow keeps the competitors at bay, apparently, from previous discussions about AI companies who burn books.

Can we really trust these AI companies when they're basically assimilating human art and culture and everything, only to go on and destroy the evidence?

I don't understand why can't they donate the books somewhere. Even if they don't want to share the scans, why not give up the books?

They can, but it would cost more and take longer, so they don't.

It's not as though they particularly care, and it's not as though bad press matters with a captured regulatory environment.

Largely, because books are heavy, and there's limited demand for most used books. If you've ever been at a book sale on the last day, there are always lots of leftover ones that no one wants.

There's a general sense that librarians are preservationists. This is far from the truth. Most books get pulped within a few years of printing. Librarians are constantly discarding books that don't get checked out to make space for new books.

In the name of efficiency they cut the spines, rip the pages apart for easier scanning, books are literal dead wood which would cost a lot in shipping so it's easier and cheaper to just discard or burn the remnants.

The book ceases to be a book right at the beginning of the extractive process.

What do you want them to do with the books after they’ve digitized them?

Give them away. Put them on the street for people to pick up. Donate them to anyone. I can't tell if you're being serious or if your comment is sarcasm. I'm leaning toward the latter.

You want them to put them on the street in front of the warehouse? Do they post them on free stuff Facebook group after or just wait for the garbage truck?

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