3 ms·

So you're a lawyer and a librarian now? If a library really won't take the books for whatever reason you're imagining, I'm sure there are other organizations th

by ktm5j 1mo ago

So you're a lawyer and a librarian now? If a library really won't take the books for whatever reason you're imagining, I'm sure there are other organizations that would.

jhbadger 1mo ago
Not really. Nobody has the space. Libraries, public, university, and private regularly "weed" their collections for things they view as outdated or just unpopular. If they didn't, they'd have no space for new books.
- ktm5j 1mo ago
  Do you really think AI companies are seeking out outdated/unpopular books to train their models on?
  - shagie 1mo ago
    Yes. https://www.npr.org/2026/08/19/nx-s1-5936438/why-tech-companies-are-buying-up-tons-of-rare-old-books-to-train-their-ai-models https://www.npr.org/2026/08/19/nx-s1-5936438/why-tech-compan... NPR's Juana Summers speaks with 404 Media cofounder and reporter Emanuel Maiberg about his investigation into a shipment of rare books which ended up at an Amazon AI training warehouse. ... MAIBERG: So I think people obviously have a very negative reaction to anyone destroying books in large quantities. I think people hear the term rare book, and they're imagining a first edition of "Oliver Twist." SUMMERS: Right. Yeah. MAIBERG: Or something like this. That is not the case. A rare book is most likely a book that was never printed in large quantities because it is about a niche subject. It is what is called vanity publishing, where someone self-publishes a book. It's an instruction manual for a product that's no longer available. It's really things like this that people at the moment don't really care about. They don't have high emotional value. But we don't necessarily know what we might find valuable in the future.
    - ktm5j 1mo ago
      I'm so glad we have you and your googling skills to assure us that this is nothing to worry about.
  - jhbadger 1mo ago
    Yes. That's the only sort of "rare book" that makes sense in context to train on. There's no point in destroying an actually valuable rare book like a first edition of the Origin of Species because those are available cheaply in reprints.
shagie 1mo ago
I believe you are referring to "The question for an AI company that can't return, sell, or donate the material after it has been scanned - are they then to pay to store it in a warehouse indefinitely?" and that you're arguing that a library could accept a donation. From Bartz v. Anthropic which was mostly about the pirated copies, but included some information about the destructive scanning, format shifting, and use as training as fair use. > Here, every purchased print copy was copied in order to save storage space and to enable searchability as a digital copy. The print original was destroyed. One replaced the other. And, there is no evidence that the new, digital copy was shown, shared, or sold outside the company. This use was even more clearly transformative than those in Texaco, Google, and Sony Betamax (where the number of copies went up by at least one), and, of course, more transformative than those uses rejected in Napster (where the number went up by “millions” of copies shared for free with others). > ... > As a result, Anthropic’s format-change from print library copies to digital library copies was transformative under fair use factor one. Anthropic was entitled to retain a copy of these works in a print format. It retained them instead in a digital format, easing storage and searchability. And, the further copies made therefrom for purposes of training LLMs were themselves transformative for that further reason, as above. Note especially the second sentence in the first paragraph. "The print original was destroyed. One replaced the other. And, there is no evidence that the new, digital copy was shown, shared, or sold outside the company." If the physical copy was shown, shared, or sold outside of the company the fair use defense would likely be much weaker than it currently is. After the company has format shifted the original and retained the digital version, it cannot share or donate the original back to some other organization. A library might take the books. It would be a legal liability for an AI company to give those books away and weaken the fair use claim that it stands on from Bartz v. Anthropic. The destruction of the original enhances the fair use claim. From the ruling: > For the print library copies that Anthropic purchased and then converted into digital library copies, Anthropic already enjoyed entitlement to keep the copies in its library. The purpose of the copying was to keep them in its library but with more favorable storage and searchability properties. Copying the entire work was exactly what this purpose required. There was no surplus copying. The source copy was destroyed. > The third fair use factor favors fair use for the purchased library copies converted from print to digital. There are no surplus copies when the original is destroyed.

by ktm5j 1mo ago

So you're a lawyer and a librarian now? If a library really won't take the books for whatever reason you're imagining, I'm sure there are other organizations that would.

jhbadger 1mo ago

Not really. Nobody has the space. Libraries, public, university, and private regularly "weed" their collections for things they view as outdated or just unpopular. If they didn't, they'd have no space for new books.

ktm5j 1mo ago
Do you really think AI companies are seeking out outdated/unpopular books to train their models on?
- shagie 1mo ago
  Yes. https://www.npr.org/2026/08/19/nx-s1-5936438/why-tech-companies-are-buying-up-tons-of-rare-old-books-to-train-their-ai-models https://www.npr.org/2026/08/19/nx-s1-5936438/why-tech-compan... NPR's Juana Summers speaks with 404 Media cofounder and reporter Emanuel Maiberg about his investigation into a shipment of rare books which ended up at an Amazon AI training warehouse. ... MAIBERG: So I think people obviously have a very negative reaction to anyone destroying books in large quantities. I think people hear the term rare book, and they're imagining a first edition of "Oliver Twist." SUMMERS: Right. Yeah. MAIBERG: Or something like this. That is not the case. A rare book is most likely a book that was never printed in large quantities because it is about a niche subject. It is what is called vanity publishing, where someone self-publishes a book. It's an instruction manual for a product that's no longer available. It's really things like this that people at the moment don't really care about. They don't have high emotional value. But we don't necessarily know what we might find valuable in the future.
  - ktm5j 1mo ago
    I'm so glad we have you and your googling skills to assure us that this is nothing to worry about.
- jhbadger 1mo ago
  Yes. That's the only sort of "rare book" that makes sense in context to train on. There's no point in destroying an actually valuable rare book like a first edition of the Origin of Species because those are available cheaply in reprints.

shagie 1mo ago

I believe you are referring to "The question for an AI company that can't return, sell, or donate the material after it has been scanned - are they then to pay to store it in a warehouse indefinitely?" and that you're arguing that a library could accept a donation. From Bartz v. Anthropic which was mostly about the pirated copies, but included some information about the destructive scanning, format shifting, and use as training as fair use. > Here, every purchased print copy was copied in order to save storage space and to enable searchability as a digital copy. The print original was destroyed. One replaced the other. And, there is no evidence that the new, digital copy was shown, shared, or sold outside the company. This use was even more clearly transformative than those in Texaco, Google, and Sony Betamax (where the number of copies went up by at least one), and, of course, more transformative than those uses rejected in Napster (where the number went up by “millions” of copies shared for free with others). > ... > As a result, Anthropic’s format-change from print library copies to digital library copies was transformative under fair use factor one. Anthropic was entitled to retain a copy of these works in a print format. It retained them instead in a digital format, easing storage and searchability. And, the further copies made therefrom for purposes of training LLMs were themselves transformative for that further reason, as above. Note especially the second sentence in the first paragraph. "The print original was destroyed. One replaced the other. And, there is no evidence that the new, digital copy was shown, shared, or sold outside the company." If the physical copy was shown, shared, or sold outside of the company the fair use defense would likely be much weaker than it currently is. After the company has format shifted the original and retained the digital version, it cannot share or donate the original back to some other organization. A library might take the books. It would be a legal liability for an AI company to give those books away and weaken the fair use claim that it stands on from Bartz v. Anthropic. The destruction of the original enhances the fair use claim. From the ruling: > For the print library copies that Anthropic purchased and then converted into digital library copies, Anthropic already enjoyed entitlement to keep the copies in its library. The purpose of the copying was to keep them in its library but with more favorable storage and searchability properties. Copying the entire work was exactly what this purpose required. There was no surplus copying. The source copy was destroyed. > The third fair use factor favors fair use for the purchased library copies converted from print to digital. There are no surplus copies when the original is destroyed.