Citing backlash, ISBNdb removed its webpages about training AI, denied ever buying, scanning, or selling a book for AI training, and said the site was a "test of market interest."

Citing backlash, ISBNdb removed its webpages about training AI, denied ever buying, scanning, or selling a book for AI training, and said the site was a “test of market interest.”

  • UnderpantsWeevilEnglish
    67·
    8 hours ago

    The “evil thing” is to sell a back catalog of physical books that they can’t move on the retail or wholesale markets.

    Idk why people are heavily invested in books moldering in a warehouse. It’s not some kind of virtue that we have this staggering overproduction of physical media that we’ve horded for nobody in particular.

    If doing this thing just results in people screaming at them, of course they’re going to take down their advertisements. But of course they’re going to keep doing it. Why would they stop? Who else buys a bunch of first print draft copies of books that never sold?