AI Companies Are Literally Destroying Books After Scanning Them — And Copyright Law Is Letting Them Get Away With It
(66 days ago) · 1 source · Summarized by CryptoBipto
AI companies are reportedly shredding physical books after digitizing them, exploiting a legal gray area in copyright law that may treat the destruction of the original as a defense against infringement claims. This practice highlights growing tensions between AI training data needs and intellectual property rights, raising questions about how digital content ownership will evolve.
WHY IT MATTERS
Imagine you lend someone your favorite book, they photocopy every page, then shred the original and claim they didn't steal anything because the book no longer exists. That's essentially what some AI companies are doing — scanning books to train their AI models, then destroying the physical copies to avoid copyright lawsuits. This matters for crypto because one of blockchain's big promises is proving who owns what — permanently and transparently. Technologies like NFTs and on-chain registries could give authors a tamper-proof record of ownership that can't be undermined by simply destroying a physical copy. If old-school copyright law can't protect creators in the AI age, blockchain-based alternatives might become much more relevant.
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