That would require effort (to sort, acquire copyright, etc) which they wouldn't put in. Because they don't care.
People obviously feel bad about companies doing this. People reading these stories don't care what's legal, they care what's ethical. Heck, re-publishing long lost material would make AI companies heroes instead of bad guys.
> That would require effort (to sort, acquire copyright, etc) which they wouldn't put in. Because they don't care.
I don't think you have any idea how expensive it is to acquire the copyright for a single book with the intent of making it freely available online. That's equivalent to asking the rights holders to perpetually forgo all possible earnings from the material, and they expect to be compensated accordingly. Even paying lawyers to begin assembling what's needed to make this happen would be five figures per book to get started.
People obviously feel bad about companies doing this. People reading these stories don't care what's legal, they care what's ethical. Heck, re-publishing long lost material would make AI companies heroes instead of bad guys.