regardless, comparable efforts to Google’s would cost many hundreds of millions of 
dollars.  13
Independent researchers, entrepreneurs, and most other businesses and organizations are 
unlikely to have the resources required to digitally scan millions of books nor purchase 
licenses to digitized books in ways that could unlock the bene ﬁts described above. Ensuring 
greater competition and innovation in this space will require making this type of data 
available to upstarts and other entities with limited resources. A well-designed and 
appropriately governed digital books commons is one way to do that.  
 “By 2004, Google had started scanning. In just over a decade, after making deals with Michigan, 13
Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, the New York Public Library, and dozens of other library systems, the 
company, outpacing Page’s prediction, had scanned about 25 million books. It cost them an estimated 
$400 million. It was a feat not just of technology but of logistics.” Somers, James. “Torching the Modern-
Day Library of Alexandria.” The Atlantic, 20 Apr. 2017, www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/
2017/04/the-tragedy-of-google-books/523320/.
Towards a Books Data Commons for AI Training 7