I really have trouble getting worked up about this. "Rare books" is thrown around regularly but my gut feeling is that's not the case. These are used (often? always?) books and while I'm sure there is waste, in general they just want 1 of every book.
While I wish there was a repository of every book that was already digitized (it pains me this is the best solution), there isn't one and so I think this is not a real problem.
It'd be a different story if they had furnaces that ran only on rare books that they had to continually feed books to but that's not what's happening here. And that 1 destroyed copy will "live on" in a way that it otherwise might not.
It'll live on if they publish those scans or contribute them to a national archives or something. Proprietary data has a habit of being lost over time though.
The scariest thing for me about companies not caring even minimally about conservation is that when AI gets more powerful than humanity (which is clearly a when not an if, even if there's a lot of uncertainty and differences in opinion about the time horizon here), I want to hope that AI will care more about conservation of human people.
So far from how I see how powerful organizations work, I'm not as certain as I would like to be.
This feels like a manufactured controversy. What difference does it make to me what someone does with a book after they buy it? It's effectively unavailable to me regardless of what they do. If people are really concerned about these "rare" books, they should lobby the copyright owners to release them online or print more copies.
I think the term "rare" might be a bit loaded. DOES it mean "only a handful in existence" or more like "1000 copies?" And at any rate, at least by scanning the book they're theoretically making its
contents available to the public. What are the other people who own these books doing besides having them sit on a shelf?
Years ago I saw an article on this. For Google Books, they had two processes.
The first was destructive. This was for mainstream books currently being published so they had no value. It's (I believe) where you cut off the spine and scan the pages.
For rarer books, there was a non-destructive process. Basically the book was opened to each page and scanned. This was slower but didn't destroy the book.
I don't understand why these companies haven't just licensed the scans Google has already done. Why is each company doing this rather than just scanning the books once and sharing the scans?
6 Feb 2021
At the Internet Archive, this is how we digitize a book.
We never destroy a book by cutting off its binding. Instead, we digitize it the hard way--one page at a time.
Wonder the additional cost to add automated page turning. More than Bezos can afford, impoverished chap he is.
If I remember correctly, it wasn't a distinction between common and rare books.
It was a distinction between library books and others. They partnered with libraries, and obviously, libraries didn't want their books destroyed, so they devised a non-destructive book scanner. Some of the books they scanned were indeed rare, but rare or not, you don't destroy books you borrowed from a library!
> I don't understand why these companies haven't just licensed the scans Google has already done.
Because for the vast majority of the books, Google doesn't have the legal right to license those scans. It would be legal if the books were out of copyright, but despite the connotation of "rare books" those generally aren't the books we're talking about. Further, in the cases where Google didn't destroy the original of the book they scanned, their scanned copy may be considered infringing under the new standard, so Google doesn't want call undue attention to what they have.
I'm less concerned with how these rare books didn't rot in large lots of unused books and more concerned with whether or not this helps preserve the content longer.
They are only destroying the books because they are required to by copyright law. They obviously wouldn't do so if they were allowed to merely copy the book and preserve the original.
Not true. To the extent that it is fair use to digitize a work for various purposes, it is also fair use to keep the original. It is only if they wanted to resell the original that they would have to delete their digitized copy. The reason they are destroying them because removing the binding is the most efficient way to scan them, they have no use for the originals after they have been scanned, and don't want to spend money storing them.
If it was $1 cheaper to destroy the books even if they didn't have to, they probably would. Storing books is expensive and selling it on means it could be picked up and scanned by a competitor.
* They're only buying a single copy of that book as they only need one to scan
* If the book was public domain (or should be), then there should be an effort to "democratize" that data into a public commons of intellectual property?
Would that an enhancement to the Library of Congress or such?
In more liberal sense, because you might be destroying something unique that later generations might actually like to see, the life rule that states "Don't be a dick" probably applies trumps even first sale doctrine.
Why would that be a reasonable assumption? This is so blown out of proportion. The imagery invoked by the narrative is one of huge corporations destroying the final copies of literary treasures. That's just not happening.
Any bookseller worth their salt will ensure that a truly valuable book will not languish on their shelf for 1 minute longer than it takes to find a buyer willing to pay a fair price.
If AI-scanners are somehow bid-sniping bona fide collectors and wealthy aficionados, there may be cause for concern. But that is most certainly not happening here.
How do you have confidence in that? These buyers are reportedly exceptionally non price conscious.
Personally when seeking out rare books with few copies in existance and extremely scarce availability, I have often found listings that have lasted for quite some time. Not all rare books go to auction. You might be thinking only of some extreme of notable works and not a wider spectrum of desired but scarce publications that does indeed exist contrary to your confident assertion.
While I wish there was a repository of every book that was already digitized (it pains me this is the best solution), there isn't one and so I think this is not a real problem.
It'd be a different story if they had furnaces that ran only on rare books that they had to continually feed books to but that's not what's happening here. And that 1 destroyed copy will "live on" in a way that it otherwise might not.
So far from how I see how powerful organizations work, I'm not as certain as I would like to be.
If people are really concerned about buffalo, they should lobby gamekeepers to release photos of them.
They raise the price and print more copies?
It's the scale that matters as first, and secondly, most people don't shred their books after reading them once or twice. This is just beyond words.
(Also the person who coined Singularity, though Ray Kurzweil really wanted everyone to think it was his idea.)
I have a few "rare books" and have read many, you'd be suprised at what is publicly available on google books since like ~2010ish.
The first was destructive. This was for mainstream books currently being published so they had no value. It's (I believe) where you cut off the spine and scan the pages.
For rarer books, there was a non-destructive process. Basically the book was opened to each page and scanned. This was slower but didn't destroy the book.
I don't understand why these companies haven't just licensed the scans Google has already done. Why is each company doing this rather than just scanning the books once and sharing the scans?
https://nitter.net/internetarchive/status/135809098218971955...
Wonder the additional cost to add automated page turning. More than Bezos can afford, impoverished chap he is.It was a distinction between library books and others. They partnered with libraries, and obviously, libraries didn't want their books destroyed, so they devised a non-destructive book scanner. Some of the books they scanned were indeed rare, but rare or not, you don't destroy books you borrowed from a library!
Because for the vast majority of the books, Google doesn't have the legal right to license those scans. It would be legal if the books were out of copyright, but despite the connotation of "rare books" those generally aren't the books we're talking about. Further, in the cases where Google didn't destroy the original of the book they scanned, their scanned copy may be considered infringing under the new standard, so Google doesn't want call undue attention to what they have.
What worries me about the trends is inevitable sanitization of content or straight out falsification.
In more liberal sense, because you might be destroying something unique that later generations might actually like to see, the life rule that states "Don't be a dick" probably applies trumps even first sale doctrine.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49330742
And that is a reasonable assumption?
If AI-scanners are somehow bid-sniping bona fide collectors and wealthy aficionados, there may be cause for concern. But that is most certainly not happening here.
Personally when seeking out rare books with few copies in existance and extremely scarce availability, I have often found listings that have lasted for quite some time. Not all rare books go to auction. You might be thinking only of some extreme of notable works and not a wider spectrum of desired but scarce publications that does indeed exist contrary to your confident assertion.
the part where the article avoids mentioning what book this was is a tell