alt Hacker NewsYeah, I was thinking along these lines...
Let's say one of the books to be digitized and destroyed is the sole remaining copy of a book from 1850, which is now considered public domain.
On one hand, hoarding such a book, stealing its content from the public domain, locking its content behind a for-profit machine, and destroying the only remaining copy is clearly wrong. It's equivalent to stealing a public resource, just like mining minerals or oil on public lands without a permit or mineral rights. Pure extraction.
On the other hand, taking care to digitize the copy and making it available for free in perpetuity, as well as being required through regulation to provide access to that content through, let's say a public utility LLM/AI available for free through libraries and online... and perhaps after fair due diligence being required to preserve physical copies in a public archive of rare books of which there are no known remaining physical copies...
That seems much more reasonable to me at least. I can imagine there are many who would not see it that way though. Do we see it happening or gaining regulatory, moral and/or public support?
I think this misconstrus what public domain is.
It provides a freedom to circulate, but not access to the material. It is not a public owned resource.
Turning a copy over to the public or state might be an interesting requirement for obtaining a copyright, but instituting that fix for new works now would have a 70 year lag time.
Think of it this way, if I copyright a book and put it in my dresser for 70 years, that doesn't give the public the right to access it or come into my house and scan it after expiry