Wait: the entire premise of copyright is to prevent someone from publishing a book, and a competitor buys a copy, clones it, and sells copies way cheaper because they don't have to pay the author.

Now, in 2026, we're acting like cloning a published book is not technically feasible? That doesn't track. With publishing on-demand, it's easy to imagine a business with digital copies of all these works that they make available for print-on-demand.

The uncomfortable reality is that most of these books are nothing anyone cares about. Even the book sellers in the 404 story call them dead inventory.

Can we get some actual book titles into the discussion so we can focus on facts rather than speculation?

> "ai" companies are simply burning our cultural context ...

Most developed countries have a 'legal deposit' system with a national archive/national library that requires publishers to send a copy of their works to them. They've existed in some form for centuries in some countries.

Example for the UK - British Library guidance: https://www.bl.uk/services/legal-deposit

Many of them don't have current publisher because no one wants to buy them. I would bet that vast majority of these books have no commercial market.