Comment by ipsum2

7 days ago

Do you understand that many of these publishers do not have the original copy anymore, and may have gone out of business entirely? 50 years ago text was not backed up to the cloud.

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ipsum2

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YetAnotherNick  7 days ago

If there are very few copies and no one wants to even spend $100 to scan it, likely the book wont be bought by anyone in any case and it would rot/thrown away in another 50 years if AI companies had not digitized it.

  • greycol  7 days ago

    Which is what has happened over time now that humanity has the ability to digitize them. The problem arises when we are purposefully picking books where we know those scans aren't yet available and purposefully destroying them. There'd be less outrage if any of these companies made statements about guaranteeing the survival of the scans they are taking and the release or planned guaridanship in the case they can no longer maintain the data.

    • YetAnotherNick  6 days ago

      Who is digitizing the books which are rare? Isn't it even more valuable to digitize for them now that they have new buyer which can pay 100s of times more.

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