The problem is that you probably do little research or read very few old books.

There are multiple instances of a book being referred within another book, while at the time the author had access to it, we might not have it today. Taking a rare book and destroying absolutely erases that link we have with the past.

You not seeing a problem with this is the core issue, it's probably why the people doing it (it's people destroying these books not aliens) just shrug and don't feel too bad doing that.

Old books are even more crucial than today's books due to how uncommon it was to have something written/printed and bound. Many unique and single copy books explain to us a ton of things about the past, sometimes for funsies and sometimes for useful findings. Destroying old books is akin to destroying the closest we got to time machines.

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brainwad 11 hours ago | parent [-]

Surely the people granted a legal monopoly to print the books will have kept a copy of the masters in order to reprint any lost works. Surely copyright works as intended for the public good and isn't just rent seeking. Surely.

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ForHackernews 11 hours ago | parent [-]

I can't tell if you're making a joke but many (most?) rare books predate the modern copyright regime and the original printing plates are somewhere in a 17th century midden heap.

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brainwad 9 hours ago | parent [-]

The books being destroyed are not afaik those sort of books. They are just out of print modern books, that are still under copyright (and hence can't legally be scanned non-destructively).

	▲	joshstrange 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> They are just out of print modern books, that are still under copyright OR in-print modern books that they can get for cheaper by buying used. The whole thing is a manufactured outrage over something that doesn't matter. They aren't breaking into museums to steal their only copy of a book and burn it. They are digitizing books. If anything I commend them for what they are doing. If the alternatives were that book rotting on a shelf or being thrown away they doing a great service preserving it, even if they don't make it available publically (which they can't for copyright reasons). It's literally no different from them stocking a private library with these books, except it's better because digital copies are much easier to preserve.