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Comment by icantevenhold | Hacker News Reader

Why do they shred them at all instead of donating or selling them again?

A judge ruled it was OK to scan books and save the scanned copy if you shred the physical book afterwards.

The judge ruled that format shifting was fair use. The fair use argument was enhanced because the original was destroyed. Hypothetically, one could do only the format shifting and keep the original - but the original could not be sold or donated or otherwise given away because then the format shifted copy would not be fair use.

I can burn DVD copies of my old VHS tapes. I cannot then give away the old VHS tapes or sell them at a garage sale. If I keep them, they're cluttering the shelf... so the VHS tape gets thrown away afterwards.

My understanding is they cut off the binding for scanning. They'd have to resell it donate by the page

They have to destroy the copy either way for it to be fair use (according to Bartz v Anthropic). Cutting the bindings off is already the faster method to scan, and once you're required to pulp the original anyway, it becomes a no-brainer.

The wording doesn't exactly say that. https://www.akingump.com/a/web/h6WFidTYyTnoNEPehPXMYu/auvY7D...

The relevant part of the ruling starts on page 27.

    For the print library copies that Anthropic purchased and then converted into digital library copies, Anthropic already enjoyed entitlement to keep the copies in its library. The purpose of the copying was to keep them in its library but with more favorable storage and searchability properties. Copying the entire work was exactly what this purpose required. There was no surplus copying. The source copy was destroyed.
    The third fair use factor favors fair use for the purchased library copies converted from print to digital.

Fair use favors the destruction to avoid accidental surplus copying of the source material. It doesn't require it. If Anthropic put everything in a warehouse, they could keep it in the warehouse... but they couldn't do anything with them afterwards. They couldn't sell them as books or donate them as that would mean that it wasn't fair use and copyright infringement would have taken place once that additional copy was distributed again. At that point, fair use and economics both favor destroying the original.

If I make a DVD copy of an old VHS tape that I own, that's fair use format shifting. I can keep the VHS tape without issue. I cannot donate it to the library or put it out in a garage sale. When I got rid of my VHS player, I threw out VHS tapes too since they were of no use and only cluttered my shelf.

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