cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/74448280
cross-posted from: https://kbin.earth/m/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com/t/3120649
As AI tech companies increasingly buy and destroy books to feed to their AI models, Anna’s Archive is calling for volunteers to help preserve them for the public record.
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I don’t get it. Can’t they just…print more books?
That should be the answer, but thanks to Disney extending copyright to basically a century, the answer is no.
You would think everyone clutching pearls about “rare books” would be on-board to relax that nonsense, so a corporation scanning every book could just post their scan. You would really think.
So the copyright doesn’t extend to sales?
… yes, the entire idea of copyright is that owning a copy is distinct from the right to sell more copies.
Right, but we’re not talking about owning, we’re talking about selling. The AI companies are buying these books. Which means someone is selling them.
Are you confused by the concept of a used book store?
They’re buying old books. Books that are no longer in print. These specific copies were produced legitimately, by the rightsholders, but new copies are no longer being made. Whether the publisher could reprint them might be legally or logistically complicated. More often, nobody cares.
A book from 1920 will probably not get printed again
…why not?
If it hasn’t been printed more than once in a literal century, is that really a loss?
Potentially, yes. Sure, it could just be some smut novel, but it could also provide insight into a certain group or people’s perspective on societal/political events at the time, contributing to a better painted big picture on an event we thought we knew all there is to know about.
A very recent example is the VHS tapes that contained unseen and unpublished footage of Tiananmen Square.
