4 ms·

What they could do, if they were truly focused on not taking the most destructive path forward, would be to cooperate on a single scanning company that could po

by _djo_ 2mo ago

What they could do, if they were truly focused on not taking the most destructive path forward, would be to cooperate on a single scanning company that could pool the resulting text for the others on attractive terms, to ensure that once a book was scanned all the others wouldn't need to scan and destroy the same title. That would substantially limit the damage. Of course, because each company is happy to burn it all down to beat their competitors and being first to any content is most important, this will never happen.

ThrowawayR2 2mo ago
Somehow people are still failing to understand that transferring the scan from a trust, scanning company, or other external party would constitute a transfer of a copy between distinct legal entities that breaches copyright law in an actionable way. Doing the scan within their own organization does not because it's within a single legal entity and there is no copyright issue involved.
- _djo_ 2mo ago
  I'm not failing to understand that, I just don't think it's an insurmountable barrier. You could overcome it through various means, including helping to set up a clearinghouse for bulk rights, implementing a data clean room approach that models could train on in situ, lobbying Congress for copyright law changes especially around orphan works, using Section 108 of the Copyright Act to set up a specific preservation vehicle like the HathiTrust, and other options. I find it ridiculous that so many in this thread are acting as though AI companies are simply powerless to do anything but buy up and destroy these rare books.
  - ThrowawayR2 2mo ago
    Make a case that it's more profitable to take any of the courses you suggest and you might be on to something but they aren't. All of those things take time and time is money when you're running a business.
    - ygjb 2mo ago
      I would rather make the case that with the increasing consolidation of media under the big tech companies, regulation is more effective than a business case.
    - _djo_ 2mo ago
      Of course they’re not more profitable, they’re negative externalities that aren’t being priced into a finite commodity. That’s the whole point: Companies are doing this because it’s easier and cheaper for them, and those doing it now are first-movers who don’t care about how catastrophic the end result will be for the rest of society as they’ll have their training data moat. It should be obvious, but the things that are most profitable are not always the things that are best for society as a whole. That’s why we have regulation.

by _djo_ 2mo ago

ThrowawayR2 2mo ago

Somehow people are still failing to understand that transferring the scan from a trust, scanning company, or other external party would constitute a transfer of a copy between distinct legal entities that breaches copyright law in an actionable way. Doing the scan within their own organization does not because it's within a single legal entity and there is no copyright issue involved.

_djo_ 2mo ago
I'm not failing to understand that, I just don't think it's an insurmountable barrier. You could overcome it through various means, including helping to set up a clearinghouse for bulk rights, implementing a data clean room approach that models could train on in situ, lobbying Congress for copyright law changes especially around orphan works, using Section 108 of the Copyright Act to set up a specific preservation vehicle like the HathiTrust, and other options. I find it ridiculous that so many in this thread are acting as though AI companies are simply powerless to do anything but buy up and destroy these rare books.
- ThrowawayR2 2mo ago
  Make a case that it's more profitable to take any of the courses you suggest and you might be on to something but they aren't. All of those things take time and time is money when you're running a business.
  - ygjb 2mo ago
    I would rather make the case that with the increasing consolidation of media under the big tech companies, regulation is more effective than a business case.
  - _djo_ 2mo ago
    Of course they’re not more profitable, they’re negative externalities that aren’t being priced into a finite commodity. That’s the whole point: Companies are doing this because it’s easier and cheaper for them, and those doing it now are first-movers who don’t care about how catastrophic the end result will be for the rest of society as they’ll have their training data moat. It should be obvious, but the things that are most profitable are not always the things that are best for society as a whole. That’s why we have regulation.