Yeah that’s exactly it. James Patterson, for example, has written dozens of books, and there are billions of his books alone. They’re taking one of each, cutting off the binding, and scanning the pages. This is standard procedure for common books.

So why don’t they want people knowing about it? Because a lot of people are anti-AI and will run misleading stories like this.

I’m as anti-AI as the next guy, but unlike other companies scraping all of reddit and stealing art off the Internet, these guys are doing it mostly properly by paying for the books. They still don’t have a license to use the material in this manner, though.