Does it matter? It's waste at the end of the day. Instead they could have bought e-books. Just because we can recycle paper, it doesn't mean we have the luxury to create waste as we see fit, esp. when climate change became this severe.
> which the courts so far have ruled that it does.
Any concrete cases you can cite?
From [0], for example, while the course said that the authors failed to argue their case, the second observation is complete opposite of what you said. Citing the article directly:
Opinion suggests AI models do generally violate law.
[0]: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/meta-beats-copyrigh...
Rubbish.
More likely they are taking a waste stream of books and reusing and possibly even recycling.
Few people want old books, and many people that have books are throwing them out or donating them. I don't think I know anybody under 30 with a bookshelf of books they obviously intend to keep for life. Bookshelves used to be an elite status symbol, now I often see them as image rather than reference (e.g. part off backdrop behind influencer vid).
It is likely they didn't destroy much of value, since they will have minimized their purchasing costs. Modern DRM is not helping.
As someone who finds the act objectionable, I actually do think this is an important point. Destroying commodity books in this way is objectionable. Destroying precious books in this way would be abominable.