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Comment by cute_boi

7 hours ago

Forget publishing, companies like misanthropic are buying rare books and destroying it.

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

14 comments

cute_boi

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jsphweid  7 hours ago

When they do this, are they buying a single copy of say Book A and destroying a single Book A copy? Or are they buying every copy they can find of Book A and destroying all of them?

  • xyzzy123  6 hours ago

    Hi, shredding the book is to reduce potential legal liability of format shifting - if you shred the book after scanning, the theory is you are not increasing the number of copies. This has come up as a factor in legal rulings. The legality of format shifting is still murky though, and the legality of training on the work are a separate question.

  • ComputerPerson  7 hours ago

    Elon recently (2d) tweeted about making sure they preserve rare books and "scan them the hard way". That tweet launched a cultural wave of opposition regarding the debinding of rare books.

    The discussion has been around, but it's flared significantly recently. Not sure if that's what the person you're responding to is specifically inflamed about.

    Regardless, old/rare books are certainly being acquired and destroyed.

    • gowld  7 hours ago

      No, he didn't tweeted about "making sure" of anything.

      Elon tweeted "I’ve asked the SpaceXAI team to preserve any rare books in a library and scan them the hard way vs just cutting off the spine and scanning"

      which is no sense a credible source for what he actually asked SpaceXAI team to do, or if they are doing it, or what they were doing before yesterday. Elon has an extremely long and thorough track record of lying.

      https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/2081844165881594362

      1 reply →

drivebyhooting  7 hours ago

What do you mean?