alt Hacker News> with a focus only on books with an ISBN number, the identification system introduced in 1966
So it's not likely to be rare and precious books. It's things which are already in the Library of Congress or its many equivalents.
If they're forced by laws to destroy the results of the scans after training on them, as some have implied, that's bad, on the chance there is some actual lost media in there. But if they keep the scans, or even the transcripts, that's probably an improvement on the status quo, to be honest.
I've had family members in the used books business, and trust me the fate of the vast majority of these books was always to be pulped.
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letting companies train on books for only the price of a paperback and then forcing them to destroy their scans would truly be the worst of all worlds. (ps: the scanning process typically destroys the book too; they chop off the spines.)
SBN started in 1967 in UK (W.H.Smith), official international book numbering (ISBN) is after 1970.
There are plenty of rare and precious books with ISBNs.
> on the chance there is some actual lost media in there. But if they keep the scans, or even the transcripts, that's probably an improvement on the status quo
Where can I see the scans and the transcripts in this "better status quo"?
> But if they keep the scans, or even the transcripts, that's probably an improvement on the status quo, to be honest.
only if they share the scans/transcripts and don’t hide it away.