alt Hacker NewsThey don't have to destroy the books to scan them. There are techniques for doing it non-destructively, but they're slower and more expensive. It's cheaper to cut the spines off and drop the stack of papers on a flatbed scanner with a paper feeder.
They don't have to destroy the books to scan them. There are techniques for doing it non-destructively, but they're slower and more expensive. It's cheaper to cut the spines off and drop the stack of papers on a flatbed scanner with a paper feeder.
Destroying the original makes it easier to justify that scanning the books is fair use, because you haven't increased the number of copies. See page 16 of https://copyrightalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Bar... : "This use was even more clearly transformative than those in Texaco, Google, and Sony Betamax (where the number of copies went up by at least one)"