3 ms·

Copyright law prefers the destructive method. It's not that they're skirting the law but that the law is set up very badly in the first place.

GPerson 2mo ago
Courts found that having a central library of 7 million pirated books is against the law, and assessed a large penalty (small for these robber barons) so Anthropic is destroying them now to conform to the law. The law is bs and Anthropic is run by villains.
- therobot24 2mo ago
  I had always heard that Google did the 'books' project such that they were waiting for the suit because they legitimately didn't know _who_ to pay in order to achieve their objective in adding more dimensions to their search empire. The copyright law is rooted in the ability to have someone else profit off of reproducing your content. In the Anthropic lawsuit "the plaintiffs did not allege, nor did the record show, that Anthropic’s Claude LLM outputted infringing copies or substantial reproductions of the plaintiffs’ works" (https://www.ropesgray.com/en/insights/alerts/2025/06/from-books-to-bots-key-takeaways-from-the-anthropic-fair-use-decision-for-ai-developers https://www.ropesgray.com/en/insights/alerts/2025/06/from-bo...). Destroying your own property is legally allowed. Doing it at scale sucks, but is still allowed. As long as Anthropic et al don't distribute their digital copies then there's nothing legally wrong about what they're doing.
jsrozner 2mo ago
In times of substantial technological change, laws tend to lag substantially behind what is actually needed. And in times of substantial inequality, they lag yet further.
m4rtink 2mo ago
Wasn't copyright law supposed to support creation and propagation of works of art ? Instead, apparently it is A-OK or even encouraged by the same law to destroy books. That does not make any sense! Really might be high time to scrap it all.
- semiquaver 2mo ago
  This is confused thinking. Why would copyright law care one way or another about whether or not you destroy a book you own? On the other hand, absolutely yes we should abolish all IP law.
  - rpdillon 2mo ago
    The ruling in the Anthropic case was that their scanning of the books was only fair use because the original physical copy was destroyed. The copyright lobby wanted scarcity so they could monetize things, and now folks are worried about knowledge being scarce. It's a problem of our own making.
- ssl-3 2mo ago
  I support your right to do whatever the hell you want with the books that you own. Build a lending library, or build a bonfire, or do anything else with them that you choose. They're your books. Have at it.
kmeisthax 2mo ago
No, it doesn't. Copyright doesn't care about copies, it cares about copying. If it did care about copies - i.e. the total number of copies in circulation - then ReDigi and the Internet Archive's Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) program would have both been legal. Destroying a copy does not give you permission to create a replacement copy. The only relevant case law for AI training in the US is the rulings in the Anthropic lawsuit presided over by Judge Alsup. That lawsuit ruled that it's infringement to build a shadow library from pirated books; but NOT to train AI on those pirated books. The only point where destructive book scanning even comes into play is that Anthropic also had a book scanning program alongside their piracy, Judge Alsup said that program was not infringing, and Anthropic happened to be destroying books. At no point did Alsup say that leaving the books whole would have infringed copyright - it was never even considered as it was outside the scope of the lawsuit. Now, if Anthropic were to non-destructively scan books, store them in a library, and sell the books on, that could be infringing. All the case law about format shifting presumes the owner retains the original. So Anthropic would likely have to hold onto books, at least the ones they wanted to train on, until they were done training on that book[0]. But they do not have to destroy them permanently. They are destroying these books specifically because it is cheaper to do so than to use, say, the Internet Archive's own custom-built nondestructive scanners. [0] I am absolutely furious about how much this sounds like "fair use is just an extra license you get when you buy a book", and I would much rather have had Judge Alsup just say AI training is not fair use instead.
- rpdillon 2mo ago
  The destruction of the books is mentioned many times, and the overall analysis says this: > The copies used to convert purchased print library copies into digital library copies were justified, too, though for a different fair use. The first factor strongly favors this result, and the third favors it, too. The fourth is neutral. Only the second slightly disfavors it. On balance, as the purchased print copy was destroyed and its digital replacement not redistributed, this was a fair use. I do not think the ruling would have gone this way if the books were not destroyed, as many would assert that Anthropic would retain them to sell later, otherwise. The fact that destruction is mentioned so pervasively in the decision suggests it is an important fact to consider. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.434709/gov.uscourts.cand.434709.231.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.43...
Ekaros 2mo ago
Issue really is first sale doctrine. Meaning that after first sale there is very much leeway for the product owner. Even to scan and destroy it. Copyright ways. Form change probably should be compensated. Even if it means that you wouldn't be able to format change your own media. Or that such activities wouldn't be allowed without compensation over certain threshold.
- rpdillon 2mo ago
  This is in tension with Sony vs. Betamax, which held that time shifting is fair use, but that also requires format-shifting (broadcast to recorded media).

GPerson 2mo ago

Courts found that having a central library of 7 million pirated books is against the law, and assessed a large penalty (small for these robber barons) so Anthropic is destroying them now to conform to the law. The law is bs and Anthropic is run by villains.

therobot24 2mo ago
I had always heard that Google did the 'books' project such that they were waiting for the suit because they legitimately didn't know _who_ to pay in order to achieve their objective in adding more dimensions to their search empire. The copyright law is rooted in the ability to have someone else profit off of reproducing your content. In the Anthropic lawsuit "the plaintiffs did not allege, nor did the record show, that Anthropic’s Claude LLM outputted infringing copies or substantial reproductions of the plaintiffs’ works" (https://www.ropesgray.com/en/insights/alerts/2025/06/from-books-to-bots-key-takeaways-from-the-anthropic-fair-use-decision-for-ai-developers https://www.ropesgray.com/en/insights/alerts/2025/06/from-bo...). Destroying your own property is legally allowed. Doing it at scale sucks, but is still allowed. As long as Anthropic et al don't distribute their digital copies then there's nothing legally wrong about what they're doing.

jsrozner 2mo ago

In times of substantial technological change, laws tend to lag substantially behind what is actually needed. And in times of substantial inequality, they lag yet further.

m4rtink 2mo ago

Wasn't copyright law supposed to support creation and propagation of works of art ? Instead, apparently it is A-OK or even encouraged by the same law to destroy books. That does not make any sense! Really might be high time to scrap it all.

semiquaver 2mo ago
This is confused thinking. Why would copyright law care one way or another about whether or not you destroy a book you own? On the other hand, absolutely yes we should abolish all IP law.
- rpdillon 2mo ago
  The ruling in the Anthropic case was that their scanning of the books was only fair use because the original physical copy was destroyed. The copyright lobby wanted scarcity so they could monetize things, and now folks are worried about knowledge being scarce. It's a problem of our own making.
ssl-3 2mo ago
I support your right to do whatever the hell you want with the books that you own. Build a lending library, or build a bonfire, or do anything else with them that you choose. They're your books. Have at it.

kmeisthax 2mo ago

No, it doesn't. Copyright doesn't care about copies, it cares about copying. If it did care about copies - i.e. the total number of copies in circulation - then ReDigi and the Internet Archive's Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) program would have both been legal. Destroying a copy does not give you permission to create a replacement copy. The only relevant case law for AI training in the US is the rulings in the Anthropic lawsuit presided over by Judge Alsup. That lawsuit ruled that it's infringement to build a shadow library from pirated books; but NOT to train AI on those pirated books. The only point where destructive book scanning even comes into play is that Anthropic also had a book scanning program alongside their piracy, Judge Alsup said that program was not infringing, and Anthropic happened to be destroying books. At no point did Alsup say that leaving the books whole would have infringed copyright - it was never even considered as it was outside the scope of the lawsuit. Now, if Anthropic were to non-destructively scan books, store them in a library, and sell the books on, that could be infringing. All the case law about format shifting presumes the owner retains the original. So Anthropic would likely have to hold onto books, at least the ones they wanted to train on, until they were done training on that book[0]. But they do not have to destroy them permanently. They are destroying these books specifically because it is cheaper to do so than to use, say, the Internet Archive's own custom-built nondestructive scanners. [0] I am absolutely furious about how much this sounds like "fair use is just an extra license you get when you buy a book", and I would much rather have had Judge Alsup just say AI training is not fair use instead.

rpdillon 2mo ago
The destruction of the books is mentioned many times, and the overall analysis says this: > The copies used to convert purchased print library copies into digital library copies were justified, too, though for a different fair use. The first factor strongly favors this result, and the third favors it, too. The fourth is neutral. Only the second slightly disfavors it. On balance, as the purchased print copy was destroyed and its digital replacement not redistributed, this was a fair use. I do not think the ruling would have gone this way if the books were not destroyed, as many would assert that Anthropic would retain them to sell later, otherwise. The fact that destruction is mentioned so pervasively in the decision suggests it is an important fact to consider. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.434709/gov.uscourts.cand.434709.231.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.43...

Ekaros 2mo ago

Issue really is first sale doctrine. Meaning that after first sale there is very much leeway for the product owner. Even to scan and destroy it. Copyright ways. Form change probably should be compensated. Even if it means that you wouldn't be able to format change your own media. Or that such activities wouldn't be allowed without compensation over certain threshold.

rpdillon 2mo ago
This is in tension with Sony vs. Betamax, which held that time shifting is fair use, but that also requires format-shifting (broadcast to recorded media).