Former Google Books PM says today’s AI book-scanning backlash was shaped by earlier copyright fights
RexDouglass · x · 2026-07-28
What happened
A former Google Books PM says the current wave of bulk book scanning feels like a direct result of how publishers and rightsholders handled the Google Books era.
Core point
- He argues that if publishers had not gone “scorched earth” on fair-use lawsuits, the industry might have landed in a less extreme model for digitizing and accessing books.
- In his view, a better path could have been something like “Google Editions”: acquire books, digitize them carefully, and then donate them to a rare-book collection or public-access archive.
- The post is a reaction to reporting that AI companies are buying rare books, scanning them, and shredding originals, with pre-2022 books especially valuable because they are free of AI-generated text.
- The thread highlights how copyright conflict around training data can push companies toward more conservative, less public-facing practices.
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