All the offense is that books are being destroyed. They're being destroyed b/c that's slicing off the binding to get flat pages is most convenient way to scan them. But ... could AI firms sidestep all the vitriol by paying to rebind the guillotined pages? I have no experience with such things, but if they were willing get the machines to do paperback thermal bindings (even if they sliced open a hardcover) and then donate or resell the books back into the marketplace, a lot of the "destroying rare books" emotions could be avoided.