[sethops1]

> Aren't they shredding only the books still under copyright protection? How is an 18th century botanical text still under copyright?

It's cheaper to scan the books if you do it destructively. Cost. That's why they're shredding irreplaceable texts. Nothing to do with copyright.

https://www.404media.co/ai-companies-are-buying-tons-of-old-...

[cestith]

One doesn’t need to pulp the pages after scanning though. After scanning, they could be rebound and put into a library.

[dpark]

That would be a clear case of copyright infringement under current law. You can’t make a copy of a book and then give the original to someone else.

[breakyerself]

If it's copyright is expired why not?

[dpark]

The books in question are not antique. The Twitter post makes this claim but so far as I can tell it’s not based in fact.

404 Media published a story about this as well and cites a bookseller who notes that all of the books there have sold have had ISBNs (and are thus from 1967 or later and generally would have active copyright).

”very large purchases were of books that had little in common, except for the fact that they all had ISBNs. This seller also sells rare books that do not have ISBNs, and none of those were part of the bulk purchases”

https://archive.ph/9MQrK

[cestith]

This is the necessary context distilled down to be concise. Thank you.