> I tend to think copyright should be extremely limited compared to what it is now, but to me the logic of this ruling is illogical other than "it's ok for a corporation to use lots of works without permission but not for an individual to use a single work without permission."
That's not what the ruling says.
It says that training a generative AI system not designed primarily as a direct replacement for a work on one or more works is fair use, and that print-to-digital destructive scanning for storage and searchability is fair use.
These are both independent of whether one person or a giant company or something in between is doing it, and independent of the number of works involved (there's maybe a weak practical relationship to the number of works involved, since a gen AI tool that is trained on exactly one work is probably somewhat less likely to have a real use beyond a replacement for that work.)
That's not what the ruling says.
It says that training a generative AI system not designed primarily as a direct replacement for a work on one or more works is fair use, and that print-to-digital destructive scanning for storage and searchability is fair use.
These are both independent of whether one person or a giant company or something in between is doing it, and independent of the number of works involved (there's maybe a weak practical relationship to the number of works involved, since a gen AI tool that is trained on exactly one work is probably somewhat less likely to have a real use beyond a replacement for that work.)