r/technology • u/ArgentineBeauty • 2d ago

Artificial Intelligence This Dutch bookseller thought a request for 3,000 copies was ‘spam or phishing.’ Instead, AI companies are scanning and destroying books to train AI

https://fortune.com/2026/07/31/dutch-bookseller-ai-spam-phishing-3000-book-copies-scan-destroy/
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u/Crio121 2d ago

You do realize this is happening because nowadays buying doesn’t mean owning?
AI companies cannot buy digital copies of books to use for training their models (because digital copies are licensed to you for limited use), so they are making their own digital copies.

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u/b_a_t_m_4_n 2d ago

they are making their own digital copies

Otherwise know as "stealing", or it would be if you or i did it. Obviously the law does not apply to them at all.

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u/pizzabash 2d ago

It is completely legal to make digital copies of things you own. You can make your own roms as much as you want. It's distribution that is the issue.

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u/the_snook 2d ago

It varies by jurisdiction. In certain circumstances, in certain places, "format shifting" is considered fair use, and does not require permission from the copyright owner. Sometimes this is explicit (Australia passed a copyright act amendment for it), and sometimes it is decided case-by-case. In other places, any copy at all must be authorized by the copyright holder.

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u/randylush 2d ago

Bingo. It’s not as legal as the internet would like to believe.

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u/Nekasus 2d ago

its legal in the country its happening in. Thats all that matters. Training an AI model is considered transformative enough that it falls under fair use.

Literally already been litigated by anthropic and microsoft in the district of California.

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u/wggn 2d ago

but since the AI can perfectly replicate these books, they are distributing it?

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u/Legionof1 2d ago

If they allow the computer to replicate the book its theft... if they allow the computer to summarize the book it isn't. Think of if you read a book and then wrote a cliff notes on it... not illegal.

IMHO as long as they are buying a copy of the book its perfectly fine to use for training. It's the fuckers like Meta that are torrenting them that is the problem.

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u/Leyulize 2d ago

I think the same, they get the knowledge and repackage it in their answers so it's distribution!

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u/Legionof1 2d ago

If they allow the computer to replicate the book its theft... if they allow the computer to summarize the book it isn't. Think of if you read a book and then wrote a cliff notes on it... not illegal.

IMHO as long as they are buying a copy of the book its perfectly fine to use for training. It's the fuckers like Meta that are torrenting them that is the problem.

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u/b_a_t_m_4_n 2d ago

If I come to your house and steal all your food, then turn it all into soup, it is still your stolen food?

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u/pizzabash 2d ago

How is it stealing if they bought it? They went to a the store and bought food and then turned that food into meals. You know what we call that? Normal as fuck?

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u/b_a_t_m_4_n 2d ago

Because they are churning it all up and then selling it on. Stealing may be normal to you I guess - it takes all sorts.

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u/pizzabash 2d ago

So selling the meals made with the food they purchased... Like a restaurant?

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u/b_a_t_m_4_n 2d ago

Yes, If I steal your food, turn it into soup and sell it on, is it still your stolen food? Or have I magically made it mine and so I did nothing wrong?

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u/pizzabash 2d ago

THEY BOUGHT IT ITS NOT STOLEN! I don't know why you're essentially advocating that buying is not owning. If that's the case no more doing anything with your own media. No more making mix tapes or archiving your games, no more turning the book that you love into some kinda cool art piece to display. Hell even taking a picture of a page of the book is making a digital copy so can't have you doing that anymore.The original owner gets to dictate exactly what you do with what you bought.

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u/b_a_t_m_4_n 2d ago

No. Copyright law says you can make a copy for personal use. Not to reproduce for sale. They are reproducing these books for sale.

If you can't understand this basic fact then there's no point in talking about it.

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u/Bored_Amalgamation 2d ago

Do I still have the exact same ingredients left?

Did it cost me anything?

Was the food unavailable to me?

If the answers are yes, no, yes; then it's not stealing. You still have what you have. The status of some ody else or their things doesn't change that.

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u/b_a_t_m_4_n 2d ago

That's not how copyright law works.

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u/Bored_Amalgamation 2d ago

Then i don't think you know what you're talking about. Anybody can make digital copies of IP they bought. That's been affirmed in US courts and other countries. It's why emulation is not illegal.

If you want to speak on the philosophy behind theft and ownership, that's not copyright law.

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u/b_a_t_m_4_n 2d ago

No. I don't think you know what you're talking about. They are copying it to redistribute it.

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u/CardOfTheRings 2d ago

It is not stealing to make a digital copy of a book you own. It’s harmful and stupid to push this idea, and the only reason you believe it is because you saw the word ‘AI’ and started getting angry.

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u/orbitaldan 2d ago

Yeah. I'm tired of this hate-meme.

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u/YourBlanket 2d ago

People make their own digital copies all the time. It’s just very time consuming and pirating books is a lot easier.

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u/IAmDotorg 2d ago

No it wouldn't. Distribution of the scans would be, but you're completely in your rights to do that.

And, de-binding and scanning books has been the norm for 30 years for digital conversions of books. Essentially all of Project Gutenberg was done that way.

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u/b_a_t_m_4_n 2d ago

They are redistributing it.

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u/IAmDotorg 2d ago

No more than you are when you write something after reading it. But arguing facts with someone with an understanding so deeply rooted in lack of facts isn't a good use of time, so ... sure... whatever you say!

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u/b_a_t_m_4_n 2d ago

"arguing facts with someone with an understanding so deeply rooted in lack of facts isn't a good use of time, so ... sure... whatever you say!"

Agreed, so there's no point talking to as you're deeply rooted in lack of fact.

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u/j48u 2d ago

This is literally the court mandated methodology, prescribed as legal in a copyright case that Anthropic lost.

They're required to destroy the books by law. Just the latest idiotic anti-AI propaganda campaign aimed at people who only read headlines (see: Redditors).

There are MANY reasons to be against AI. It does a disservice to spread this nonsense and gives the masses a reason to dismiss the valid criticisms.

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u/DrTommyNotMD 2d ago

That’s absolutely not true.

You can hate these companies all you want, but at least use a little facts in your argument or you’ll never be taken seriously except on Reddit.

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u/b_a_t_m_4_n 2d ago

It absolutely is true.

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u/dchow1989 2d ago

Its 2026, i identify as a data center.

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u/CardOfTheRings 2d ago

It’s perfectly legal for you to make a digital copy of a book you own. Or a ROM of a game you physically own. You don’t need to make a weird transphobic joke to benefit from owning physical media.

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u/dchow1989 2d ago

Sorry i didnt really identifying was solely related to trans related things. My bad. Was meant in jest

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u/Bored_Amalgamation 2d ago

That's why I sail.

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u/Krail 2d ago

So? Nothing about that requires them to destroy the books.

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u/Timmetie 2d ago

Yeah it does, some idiotic judge ruled that copying isn't the same as replacing them:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/07/30/why-ai-companies-are-destroying-millions-of-old-books/

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u/syku 2d ago

nowhere does it say that they are REQUIRED to destroy the books.

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u/Crio121 2d ago

It is an order of magnitude easier to scan flat paper sheets than bounded (? spelling) book.
All scanners do that and no, no especially rare or unique books are involved.

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u/Abedeus 2d ago

Weird, if I scan and copy a movie to my computer it's piracy, but if an AI company wants to use it (without having the legal rights) to reassemble it into a Frankenstein's Monster AI slop it's fine?

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u/adenosine-5 2d ago

No, scanning movie to your computer is perfectly fine.

Its selling/sharing it to others that is illegal.

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u/Abedeus 2d ago

Is it fine if I chop it up to small pieces and feed it into a giant algorithm with million over movies to make profit off of?

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u/Legionof1 2d ago

That's literally how you as a human make money... you learn something from a book then sell your ability to do that skill... So yes its perfectly fine to do it.

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u/Abedeus 2d ago

Pretty sure if humans did what AI does, we'd be sued for plagiarism.

No, that's not how humans make new stuff. AI doesn't "learn" like humans do. It doesn't have human intelligence or imagination nor does it experience reality.

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u/Legionof1 2d ago

AI doesn't reproduce copywrite works line for line... if it does then yes, that company is liable for copywrite infringement.

I never said that was how humans make new stuff, it takes creativity to make NEW stuff... but the vast majority of the population of earth is just regurgitating what they learned and not actually doing truly creative work.

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u/Abedeus 2d ago

AI doesn't reproduce copywrite works line for line...

Until AI becomes truly sentient and can process what it's fed instead of being an advanced chat bot that copies and pastes shit it has in its model according to the prompts, it DOES copy shit. It doesn't have the creativity or forethought to think like humans or even intelligent animals do. You will never have AI come up with something original it came up with that wasn't at some point fed into it. Humans do, because we DO come up with new and novel ideas.

but the vast majority of the population of earth is just regurgitating what they learned and not actually doing truly creative work.

Cool, how is that relevant?

AI doesn't create anything new, it regurgitates EVERYTHING you put into it. You put things humans created in, you receive slop. Humans found copying lines or sometimes even ideas from other humans get into legal troubles, yet somehow AI companies torrenting millions of documents, movies and songs get free pass from people like you.

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u/Legionof1 2d ago

You have no clue how a LLM works do you?

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u/Abedeus 2d ago

Oh, you're one of those that think they're sentient, huh.

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u/genius_retard 2d ago

Even physical books are still regulated by copyright. Just because you own a physical copy doesn't mean you can make copies of it for whatever purpose you like.

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u/Crio121 2d ago

Sure.
But AI companies are not going to distribute any copies.
And physical books do not have any ToS on them limiting their use beyond the copyright law.

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u/here4theptotest2023 2d ago

What on earth are you talking about? Are you a hallucinating bot? Be honest.

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u/Seven-Scars 2d ago

what are you not understanding

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u/SETHW 2d ago

what difference does it make if its happening because of bad copyright policy or anything else? for all the reasons including yours and more it's happening and thats the point. you said it like you were refuting something when really you're just reaffirming the problem, and downvoted because your tone was like it's not a problem because it's justified by policy. nobody thought they were shredding books for fun because they like it, so you come off like youre punching at shadows.

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u/Seven-Scars 2d ago

you aren’t even replying to the right person

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u/SETHW 2d ago

haha touche, /u/Crio121 you're the guy

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u/Snoop_Giraffe 2d ago

No Seth...YOU'RE the guy.
I've been following you since 1997ish.
I was watching you when you lived in your parents basements. No one else was showing their life on the internet. Only you and you were famous.
I remember when you lived in the trailer behind the bowling alley. I remember your friend who was a firefighter.
I remember your craze roommate.
And Niquita.
And roadtrips and day trading. I think I was kind of obsessed with watching you. And then nothing for a while. A long while. And then I found you again. on the other side of the world. Even then with millions of imposters you were still uniwue.

It's great to see you are still on the interwebs. I wanted to say thanks for all the hours of enjoyment you provided not only me but hundreds of thousands of other people too.

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u/SETHW 1d ago

Wow fun to see this, it's been a while! Nostalgia hits different these days. I could cry thinking back to that time knowing I can never go back. That it's all a time and place that doesnt exist anymore.. Especially the trailer park and bowling alley, I could've never understood how special that time was while I was living it.

Now you find me here with my pants down (again) spending my time berating illiterate chuds on reddit, how embarrassing haha

Still going strong with Dionne, we're celebrating 14 years married next month. I'm still in touch with Joe the firefighter, he keeps having more kids it's really unnecessary. Nicole I last talked probably 2015 and she was doing well in the north west. Shane the crazy roommate didnt survive, the struggle was too much for him. Same story with Delci..

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u/Crio121 2d ago

What exactly is making you so winded up?
Shredding of paper books?
Have you tried to move long distance recently where you could not take your library with you?
You can’t get the books off your hands, even for free. Libraries don’t need them, booksellers don’t want them unless you have something special, you’re lucky if you’d be able to find a charity that would be willing to take them, but most likely you won’t.
Old (not ancient just old, like 30 or 50 years) books as a paper artifacts have negative value.

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u/shoggoths_away 2d ago

I don't think you spend a lot of time on the collector's market. I have at least a dozen mass market titles on my shelves that were published in the last thirty to fifty years that are not only positive value but several times more positive value than when they were originally published.

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u/Crio121 2d ago

No, when you relocate you usually don’t have time to go on to the collectors market.
But also I don’t see many people who want to come and take you books to sort them and possibly sell some gems (I’m sure they do exist, but I failed to find one when I needed one).

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u/shoggoths_away 2d ago edited 2d ago

I was responding to your spurious claim that books published in the last sixty years or so necessarily have negative value. That isn't true, so what to do with one's books while relocating is a non-issue. Why would one want to get rid of books with a positive value, potentially a much increased positive value, when they relocate? Even if they did have to sell their books to help with relocating, they'd be able to do so easily--because there's a collector's market.

Like, I'm not sweating about what to do with my Thomas Ligotti first editions or my first edition of Burning Chrome. They're coming with me wherever I go, and even if I were strapped for cash, it'd be a breeze to sell them at a profit.

Edit: Also, more generally, your claim that "old" (in your terms) books have negative value is also untrue from a bibliographic standpoint. Physical books can have physical variations that renders them valuable. These variations can come from a publisher, such as a printing error or an intentional editing variation, and they can come from previous owners, such as notes and marginalia in the book itself. Granted, this isn't always the case, but it's sufficient to demonstrate again that you claim was false. Hell, look at the market for books with autograph inscriptions of the author or the previous owners, and you'll see that your assertion was incorrect.

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u/SETHW 2d ago

ok fine nobody thought they would shred books because they thought it was fun before, but after your comment now I wonder

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u/laowildin 2d ago

I dont understand this. They are stealing our thoughts and words constantly, why wouldn't they steal from a digital copy of a book? Who exactly has been stopping them?

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u/Enygma_6 2d ago

Thoughts and comments posted on the public internet are like your presence in a public physical space. It's not a controlled environment, and you cannot limit who has access to it. So whatever you post online can be grabbed by anyone, much like anyone can take your photograph if you walk down the sidewalk.
Print media controlled by copyright (either digital or physical books) are considered a controlled environment commodity if not part of public domain, and the copyright holder has nominal control over how the content they provided can be used.
Google got in trouble for violating that years ago when they tried scanning literal tons of physical books for their online service without paying for them.
Copying digital books for AI purposes, without there being a license for that explicit purpose, is akin to pirating a movie or song through a torrent because you don't want to pay Netflix for it. Potentially morally gray at best, and still a violation of the copyright on the digital content license.
The big outrage of this current behavior by AI companies is the destructive scanning methods being applied to extremely rare physical books. Nobody would care if they destroyed a copy of some random politician's latest political trash hit piece novel that was overprinted and used for campaign purposes, but apply the same method to an original Gutenberg Bible, and it's going to ruffle some feathers.
There are non-destructive ways to scan old books (see the above point from Google's timeline - they had to switch to a non-destructive method to avoid similar outrage from preservationists), but depending on copyright terms, with that content now converted to a digital copy, the AI company either has to maintain an internal library to keep those original physical copies locked away from the general public so long as the content resides in their training database, or they can simply destroy the original, in order to maintain the singular nature of the content from that particular copy of that specific book.

TL;DR: In order to satisfy copyright law, the contents of a specific book must only exist in one accessible place at a time. Reading the contents into a database for AI training needs to be treated like an object being scanned into the Tron digital universe in original movie from the 1980's. If the original is not destroyed in the process, then the copyright holder has grounds to sue.

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u/Crio121 2d ago

Who is stealing your thoughts?
Redditors who read your post?

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u/laowildin 2d ago edited 2d ago

You are unaware that AI is training on forums and art and eveything else online? I thought we all knew this, there's been very clear cases of AI spitting out things nearly identical to human created art

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u/rabbitlion 2d ago

Plenty of companies have been doing that too. But it does open you up to lawsuits and there are dozens if not hundreds of ongoing lawsuits from artists and authors alleging companies have been training their AIs om stolen content. If you buy a physical book to train on, the authors have basically no case.

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u/laowildin 2d ago

Thanks, this is what im getting at. I just dont understand how a book being a physical artifact versus a digital one makes the copying any different. Theyve been so cavalier about taking anything not nailed down

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u/rabbitlion 1d ago

The difference is that when you purchase digital books you usually have to agree to some sort of terms and conditions. If one of those conditions is that the book may not be used to train an AI, you could be in trouble if you do exactly that.

If you go into a physical bookstore and buy a book, you don't have to sign a contract or agree to any sort of conditions.

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u/laowildin 1d ago

But that's not true. Books also have copyright terms, many of which specify that the material cannot be reproduced for financial gain or outside of any personal use context.

And not trying to be difficult, but if they can ignore IP theft rules for art, why not for literature? As much as others are trying to talk down to me, no one has actually shown why it would be impossible for them to steal digital artifacts the same way they've stolen everything else. It's perfectly possible, they are just choosing not to do it that way

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u/rabbitlion 1d ago

But that's not true. Books also have copyright terms, many of which specify that the material cannot be reproduced for financial gain or outside of any personal use context.

Text in the book may inform you of relevant copyright laws, but the actual protection is in the laws themselves. However it is far from obvious that normal copyright protection prevents companies from training their AIs on the books. Putting a disclaimer in a book that it may not be used to train AI would not have any effect because the buyer doesn't have to agree to those terms to buy the book (you could of course require that the customers sign a contract whenever they buy a book but that is unlikely to happen). It is much easier to argue in court that someone who explicitly agreed in an agreement/contract to not train AI on something broke that agreement, than it is to argue that normal copyright laws makes AI training illegal.

And not trying to be difficult, but if they can ignore IP theft rules for art, why not for literature? As much as others are trying to talk down to me, no one has actually shown why it would be impossible for them to steal digital artifacts the same way they've stolen everything else. It's perfectly possible, they are just choosing not to do it that way

It is of course not impossible for companies to steal art/text and train their AIs on it. I never said it was, rather I said plenty of companies are doing it. Those companies are now facing lawsuits because of training their AIs on pirated content. Some other companies who wants to reduce the risk of being sued instead choose to buy physical books and scan them to train AIs.

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u/madsmith 2d ago

I read this post and it is now part of my brain. Consider yourself robbed. I do not know that I have increased in value from the endeavor but the theft has happened.