or more like they can't use the internet anymore because it's just slop now

They ran out of free information on the internet. They can't steal it just like that anymore because the providers are now aware of the value they could provide and could sue the now trillion dollars companies for stealing the data.

They didn't bother when it was a non-profit sponsored by Elon Musk.

Via google translate:

It has been discovered that online used bookstores across Japan have been receiving a surge of large orders for books since around August of this year. Interviews with these bookstores reveal reports of "100 books sold per day" and "days where sales have increased fivefold," leading to widespread speculation within the industry that the orders are intended to collect training data for generative AI (artificial intelligence). Further investigation revealed records of over 50 tons of books being exported from Japan to the United States. Is it acceptable for books to be consumed and discarded for AI training?

[...]

Nippon Television investigated using "Sayari," a tool that analyzes import and export data, and confirmed records that a group company of this major Japanese book distributor exported more than 50 tons of "JAPANESE BOOKS" to the US since last year. Assuming that all the books were heavy hardcovers (calculated at 500 grams), this would amount to the equivalent of 100,000 books.

Yeah. It somehow keeps the competitors at bay, apparently, from previous discussions about AI companies who burn books.

Can we really trust these AI companies when they're basically assimilating human art and culture and everything, only to go on and destroy the evidence?

They can, but it would cost more and take longer, so they don't.

It's not as though they particularly care, and it's not as though bad press matters with a captured regulatory environment.

Largely, because books are heavy, and there's limited demand for most used books. If you've ever been at a book sale on the last day, there are always lots of leftover ones that no one wants.

There's a general sense that librarians are preservationists. This is far from the truth. Most books get pulped within a few years of printing. Librarians are constantly discarding books that don't get checked out to make space for new books.

In the name of efficiency they cut the spines, rip the pages apart for easier scanning, books are literal dead wood which would cost a lot in shipping so it's easier and cheaper to just discard or burn the remnants.

The book ceases to be a book right at the beginning of the extractive process.

You want them to put them on the street in front of the warehouse? Do they post them on free stuff Facebook group after or just wait for the garbage truck?

Isn't the "burn after scanning" due to copyright? It seems like destructively scanning was an explicitly allowed method in Bartz v Anthropic as transformative fair use.

I'm strongly against destroying books to train AI. That said, I'd be extremely interested in exploring the contents of Japanese books, which probably have a lot of stuff not available outside Japan, through a LLM.