| ▲ | jdiff 11 hours ago |
| Nowhere in this description did it require destruction of the physical book. This is being done because it's easier to scan a shucked book, and this explanation is circulating because it's easier to blame it on the law and that pesky meddling government. |
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| ▲ | merely-unlikely 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| "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)." "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." Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, 787 F. Supp. 3d 1007 (N.D. Cal. 2025).
https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/califo... |
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| ▲ | fc417fc802 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| So if I scan a book, sell it, and keep using the scan, is that legal? (Spoiler: That's not legal. It's a violation of IP law.) |
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| ▲ | jdiff 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Selling it is not allowed. The inability to sell it does not require its destruction. | | |
| ▲ | inigyou 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | But copyright law does, because otherwise you have two copies. This isn't theoretical, AI companies have finished lawsuits about this and this was the ruling. | | |
| ▲ | jdiff 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | The ruling was that what they did was within the law, not required by law in every detail. They cannot resell the copies. I saw nothing in that ruling that required their destruction, because it is not required. A person can digitize their own books without destroying the original. So can Anthropic. They are choosing to destroy the books for easier scanning and trying to palm off the blame for it. |
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| ▲ | flatline 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Why would a company keep the hard-copy around at the risk of it being inadvertently given away, resold, etc.? It's a huge outstanding liability given that the illegal copying of works -- the other part of that case -- is what they settled out of court for some huge amount of money. Destruction is the only thing that makes sense. I'm old enough to have been around when DCMA legislation was under discussion. Many people were dead-set against it and raised concerns over matters exactly like this. In Rainbows End (2006), Vernor Vinge wrote about a similar scenario where a robot went through the university library shredding books, and scanned the shredded pieces to recombined them into a digital archive. Anthropic may be doing shady things and may have even done this on their own recognizance, we just don't know. As it stand, this is 100% a consequence of US copyright law, much of which was written by large corporations to protect their own assets. | | |
| ▲ | jdiff 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | I agree fully that it makes logistical sense. But it is not a legal requirement, and they should not be permitted to use that as an excuse to wash their hands of their own decisions. | | |
| ▲ | flatline 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think I agree with you in spirit. I don’t like what these companies are doing, and Anthropic’s actions can for the most part stand on their own. Copyright law is just a special interest of mine, and I do think it’s important to recognize what external incentives exist and what they prioritize. Because other companies will act in similar manners under the same incentive structure, and the problem is going to cascade and magnify if it hasn’t already. There are active court rulings setting precedence for this behavior - take note! |
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| ▲ | toast0 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Probably, if you sell it after the copyright expires. |
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| ▲ | brookst 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Citation please? Bartz v Anthropic seems pretty clear, see also Authors Guild v Google and RIAA v Diamond Multimedia. |
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| ▲ | jonhohle 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| 1 point by jonhohle 0 minutes ago | edit | delete [–] You’re missing the point. It doesn’t require that they destroy the book, but it precludes them from giving it away. It’s their property, so they can choose to store it, but that has real, ongoing cost and may eventually leave unusable books anyway due to fire, pests, water damage, etc. if they’re not maintained properly. |
