this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2026
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World's largest open library calls for volunteers to scan and preserve physical books as AI companies buy, scan, and destroy them — Anna's Archive says ‘time is running out’ as ‘knowledge is permanent (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 3 days ago by themachinestops@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
124 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://kbin.earth/m/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com/t/3120649

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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[–] Test_Tickles@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago (2 children)

They are literally searching for rare books, paying premium costs for them, then cutting off their spines because it is faster to scan them that way.
Not only do they not need to destroy the books to scan them, but Google already did this 2 decades ago, and they did it non-destructively.

[–] dil@lemmy.zip 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

they arent paying extra, they are buying books planned for destruction anyways?

[–] Test_Tickles@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Independent bookstores all across Europe are seeing a trend like this, where they receive random, relatively large orders that are shipped to local addresses. While orders like these still come through in the digital age, especially from institutional buyers looking to fill out new libraries, they say that most “legitimate” orders often come with coordination and negotiation, not just a straight purchase order.

[–] pseudo@jlai.lu -4 points 2 days ago

I just went on and read more article of the topics people shared in the comment. That's sounds worrying indeed but my point is more that Annans Archive appeal is very abstract in a way that it présent something that doesn't have to be a problem in a very sensationnalising manner instead of being clear about what is whappening and what we can do.