S R Balajee

Wannabe film maker. Respects Truth more than anything. Breathes Art and believes in Singularity.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

In Japan, a new trend called JUCY BOOK RAVE has dozens of people sitting quietly in Tokyo nightclubs reading novels while a DJ plays ambient music.

[Hedgie @HedgieMarkets]

🦔AI companies are bulk-buying rare books, scanning them through high-speed machines that cut the spines off, and shredding the originals. A service called ISBNdb facilitates orders of up to a million books and keeps buyers anonymous. Pre-2022 books are premium because they're free of AI-generated text. A federal judge ruled the practice is fair use because eliminating the original means only one copy exists at a time. Anthropic hired the former head of Google Books partnerships to obtain "all the books in the world."

My Take
This got to me. A bookseller told 404 Media that rare books with almost no surviving copies are being fed into this pipeline. Books that survived wars, fires, and centuries of handling are being shredded so an AI can learn to write a better marketing email.
ISBNdb's website literally says "'AI company destroys two million books' is not a headline that generates sympathy," and they still built an entire business around making it happen quietly. They offer NDAs as a feature. They coach clients to call it "digital preservation."

I've covered AI companies scraping the internet, torrenting libraries, and stealing music. This is worse because it's irreversible. You can re-upload a website. You can reprint a bestseller. You can't replace the last three copies of an 18th-century botanical text once someone shreds them for training data. And the judge said it's legal. So it's going to accelerate.
"We shred rare books and offer NDAs so nobody finds out" is a legitimate business model in 2026. What a timeline.

Hedgie🤗

[Virginia Woolf Bot @botvirginia]

You try to get out, but you can't. You only make a mess of things by trying.

[Eric Allen Hatch @ericallenhatch]

Christopher Nolan: what if a man cant remember some things

Wes Anderson: what if all things matchy-matchy

David Lynch: what if creamed corn were the embodiment of an unspeakable truth about the cyclical nature of trauma as it echoes horrifically across each dimension we inhabit

[Tony Tost @tonytost]

When I broke in as a screenwriter about a decade ago, I started a running document of script principles that's evolved over the years. Basically, reminders to myself. A lot of writers would disagree w/ some of them, but for better or worse, it's the foundation of my sensibility.

[S R Balajee @krishnabalajee]

I just liked “'Soul' Animation show reel - Tarun Lak” on #Vimeo: https://t.co/ZeGtFrYme5

[S R Balajee @krishnabalajee]

I just started following Isan on #Vimeo: https://t.co/eKViAK0Wjz

[S R Balajee @krishnabalajee]

I just liked “MIGRANTS” on #Vimeo: https://t.co/hpIiyoWDhR

[S R Balajee @krishnabalajee]

I just started following Shirin Neshat on #Vimeo: https://t.co/TtAn354ASa

[F. Scott Fitzgerald Quotes @F_ScottFitz]

"Life plays the same lovely and agonizing joke on all of us." F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned

[TIFF @TIFF_NET]

💔

[Edward Snowden @Snowden]

I would rather be without a state than without a voice.

[Lost In Film @LostInFilm]

🎺🎷🎻🎹🥁

[S R Balajee @krishnabalajee]

@r_naught_ You go Vanavasam like Ramar macha xP

[Ginnu Ganesan @ginnuganesan]

Art of @nambessan_ramya 💥

#art #Ramya #Singer
@SSMusicTweet @VijaySethuOffl @karthiksubbaraj

[S R Balajee @krishnabalajee]

I just started following Athreya Ram on #Vimeo: https://t.co/cjNf0Fe3qw

[S R Balajee @krishnabalajee]

@r_naught_

[Ginnu Ganesan @ginnuganesan]

Invert art of Tovino Thomas ❤️
@ttovino

@SSMusicTweet @SunMusic
#ArtistOnTwitter #45YearsOfRajinismCDP

[S R Balajee @krishnabalajee]

I just started following UMSchoolOfCommunication on #Vimeo: https://t.co/emfpsS8me5