The problem with the libraries is that all these scans are behind walls, so while the texts are public domain nobody can easily access them. I'm trying to liberate them and re-upload them outside the walls.
Until recently a lot of libraries would allow you to remotely sign up for a library card, but in the last 12 months almost all of them have reverted to having to bring ID in person to the library to validate your account, which puts the brakes on things.
Are you doing newspapers?
- Residential proxy providers
- Hosting providers with IP-rotation as a service.
- Hosting providers who chase AI training customers, DigitalOcean is a big one
- Clouds like AWS with headless browsing as a service
- Platforms like Replit whose value proposition starts to fall apart if clients can't make requests from their platform.
- Companies like meta, whose existing bots are now obviously completely unchained from their advertised responsibilities
This is the way for companies these days to avoid legal responsibility for their actions - hire a contractor on a "don't ask, don't tell" basis.
Of course such things are extra-ironic in the context of US companies complaining about having their condensed by Chinese companies.
Edit: I read this in one article a while back. I can't links either corroborating or refuting it now and I think that's again because whatever the companies do, they want to keep it hush-hush.