As AI tech companies increasingly buy and destroy books to feed to their AI models, Anna’s Archive is calling for volunteers to help preserve them for the public record.
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I wish I had a book scanner, I’d be digitizing every book on my shelf. I already have a good chunk of my forgotten realms stuff digitally (don’t ask where I got it) but there’s still a ton more I need, and I’ve finally gotten my spouse to read and their collection is getting almost as big as my own. There’s probably over 1,000 books between all my immediate family members.
God the future is depressing
The only book I have that might be worth scanning is Knight’s Modern Seamanship 13th edition from ~1960 (was provided to my mom as part of a record-finding request regarding my grandpa’s WW2 deployments, I have no idea why), but if my time in the Navy is any indication, its one of those things that was given during basic to all going through basic (I have a modern copy from 2007 as well), so idk if its a valuable contribution. Probably already in the archive.
I also have a copy of the joy of cooking from the 70s, and a Betty Crocker cookbook from the 50s, but I assume that’s also already in there. Plus some language textbooks and the like, some bird and geology books, some limnology books, etc. the sort of thing that’s definitely already there.
I’m willing to scan them, however a person does that, but I’m not willing to destroy them. The old books came from my grandparents, through my mom, and all of those people are long dead. Everything else is from my own education and I use them for reference.
Job Opening: Now Hiring
Description: Destroying the Library of Alexandria
Compensation: Minimum Wage ($7.25 per hour) plus free daily lunch (2 pizza slices)
Experience Required: Masters Degree in English, and at least 5 years experience working at a library or book store
Cover Letter: Please include a personal essay describing how destroying books gives you a personal sense of fulfillment
Obviously destroying books is the perfect job for me as it brings me closer to my german ancestors
Anna’s is the real deal
I have access to a book scanner, but I’m not sure what books need to be scanned, are legal to be scanned and uploaded (I don’t want to get expelled for using a school scanner to do something illegal), or whether there is personally identifiable data in the PDFs it generates (I think I can also save in GIF and maybe PNG?). Is there a beginner’s guide anywhere for all this?
Im gonna be real chief. Stop worrying about IP legality. Scan and upload everything you can get your hands on, wherever you can reasonably upload it.
AI companies are violating all copyright laws at all times of day and then destroying the originals, or even DMCA claiming them. You cannot fight that and be worried about legality.
I have repurposed an old Xbox external drive and have been ripping every optical disc in my extended family’s houses as well as opened it up to friends, anyone who wants to add to the collection is welcome to take from it, all I have to do is bring the drive with me, and they can grab whatever they want off it.
Fuck IP laws, fuck trademarks, fuck copyright.
If companies get to arbitrarily decide we can’t have access to things (especially if you have given someone money for it), then why should we give a fuck what they think?
Anna’s Archive does have guides for all of that (apart from the legal advice) on their site (use wikipedia to find the right domain).
I don’t think you’d want to do so as a university student unless you want to share the same fate as Aaron Swartz though.
Surely at least the stuff out of copyright is kosher to scan and share? Which seems like a good area to focus on if they’re being bought up and destroyed
Stuff that’s out of copyright isn’t an issue though.
The reason AI companies are destroying books is because current US copyright caselaw (most recently the Anthropic lawsuit) doesn’t allow books to be copied, but considers it fair use if you transform the format of a legally purchased book (like from print to digital) without creating a new copy. By destroying the original book, they haven’t made a copy of it, and so they operate within US law.
This doesn’t apply to public domain books (books that are no longer copyrighted) as you can do whatever you want with public domain content.
Maybe there is a way to do this anonymously? Anna’s Archive deals with books new and old, but maybe that ‘physical-only’ book that has no digital print would be the best place to start?
I remember no-eyes from #ebooks (IRCHighWay) prioritized recommendations of novels (fiction) to expand their available books, so I think that’s the safest type of book to scan?
Try your beat to cover your tracks while you do it, but if you can scan some rare books, please do. You’d be a hero
This feels like a “moment where good people took action in history books”.
The problem is there is not enough good people left in the world. Most are, if not evil, at least unwilling to take action
There are far more good people than evil people. Its just that the evil people are loud as fuck so they draw your attention more than good people.
Or the evil ones have too much power
People are largely situational. “Bad situation = less good behaviour” is a pretty common trend
There’s a ton of ancient documents and books that don’t have copies of them (Chinese stuff for example that wasn’t all digitized), please tell me data centers aren’t seriously trying to take those as well and burn those as well
I think its a solid bet to say that if there’s a price on it, data centers will pay.
That being said, China is famously protective of their shit. So if its in their hands, its probably safe.
AI companys would probably like this. Easier for them to get data.
Did you not even read the post? They ARE doing this and then destroying originals.
Nothing will stop corpos from getting data.
But we can prevent them from paywalling access by having archives of our own.
Hmm, “archive of our own” sounds like a great name for something.
We could probably recruit the special collections departments at university libraries to help since they’re already equipped, but how do we identify and procure what needs to be preserved? I kind of assumed most books were already being digitized. As a student I worked on a project digitizing old newspapers and entering basic metadata.
I sometimes try and track down rare books from the 20th century, sometiems less than 75 years old, only to.run into the problem that the only copy is in a rare books collection in a Canadian university or some shit like that
