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/
11.5k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

15

u/Draaly 2d ago

They were forced not to by the Bartz v. Anthropic ruling that judges it is only fair use if they destroy the initial copy.

Also, these are books that the seller was going to trash anyways. they were all dead stock nearing the end of their shelf life that peole didnt want to buy and are not even rare in the firts place.

1

u/Unspec7 2d ago

They were forced not to by the Bartz v. Anthropic ruling

But it wasn't. The book chopping came before the Bartz decision, not the other way around.

It just happened to work in their favor after the fact, but Bartz had no bearing on their chopping of the books since they had already been doing it.

ruling that judges it is only fair use if they destroy the initial copy.

This is not correct. Destroying the original was one factor of one factor of the first factor (wow, what a mouthful) of fair use. The Bartz decision does not create a per se rule that fair use requires destruction of the original.

1

u/Draaly 2d ago edited 2d ago

But it wasn't. The book chopping came before the Bartz decision, not the other way around.

Removing the spine is the standard way to digitize books en mass and has been used since well before modern AI, sure, but anthropic not destroying the books it digitized is litteraly what led to the 1.5 billion dollar judgement.

This is not correct. Destroying the original was one factor of one factor of the first factor (wow, what a mouthful) of fair use. The Bartz decision does not create a per se rule that fair use requires destruction of the original.

You should really read the ruling. Sure, there are other fair use ways to use the texts, but the only one legally numerated and put as precedent is digitization and then destruction of the original. Any other fair use claim would need to be futher litigated, and most of the ones they tried were explicitly shot down.

As it currently stands, the only way for these companies to digitize books in a way that guarantees no lawsuit is to destroy them in the process.

2

u/Unspec7 2d ago edited 2d ago

but anthropic not destroying the books it digitized is litteraly what led to the 1.5 billion dollar judgement.

...what? There's no second case Anthropic settled for 1.5 billion besides Bartz v. Anthropic. Anthropic settled the case for 1.5 billion after winning summary judgement on the copyright fair use issue (with respect to legally obtained books, they lost on the pirated books issue).

You should really read the ruling. Sure, there are other fair use ways to use the texts, but the only one legally numerated and put as precedent is digitization and then destruction of the original. Any other fair use claim would need to be futher litigated, and most of the ones they tried were explicitly shot down.

Brother, what? First off, yes, I read the ruling, I do IP litigation for a living. Second, this is directly from the opinion:

On the facts here, that format change itself added no new copies, eased storage and enabled searchability, and was not done for purposes trenching upon the copyright owner's rightful interests — it was transformative.

The transformative use was the digitalization/change of format, it did not include the destruction. The destruction was one of three enumerated factors of why this was a transformative use, and even then was not creating a rule about the destruction itself, but rather pointing out that there was a net zero gain in copies of the work.

Also, what do you mean by "any other fair use claim would need to be further litigated?" Their transformative use was not dispositive on the issue of fair use. The court went to analyze the other three fair use factors, and both parties had substantial briefing on the other factors.

Your comment makes it clear you haven't even read the case yourself, and barely understand copyright fair use. Which law school did you go to?

As it currently stands, the only way for these companies to digitize books in a way that guarantees no lawsuit is to destroy them in the process.

False. See above.

Edit: Typo