3 ms·

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

tpoacher 2mo ago
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.
- Legend2440 2mo ago
  >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-phishing-3000-book-copies-scan-destroy/ 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.
  - tpoacher 2mo ago
    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.
- dekhn 2mo ago
  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.
  - qsera 2mo ago
    >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?
    - WithinReason 2mo ago
      Reread what he wrote
      - qsera 2mo ago
        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?
        dekhn 2mo ago
        You are not being prevented from accessing another copy of the book to get that knowledge.
        tpoacher 2mo ago
        > 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.

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.

Legend2440 2mo ago
>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-phishing-3000-book-copies-scan-destroy/ 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.
- tpoacher 2mo ago
  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.
dekhn 2mo ago
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.
- qsera 2mo ago
  >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?
  - WithinReason 2mo ago
    Reread what he wrote
    - qsera 2mo ago
      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?
      - dekhn 2mo ago
        You are not being prevented from accessing another copy of the book to get that knowledge.
        tpoacher 2mo ago
        > 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.