For additional evil comedic value, regarding your mention of ZLib: I just recalled it was taken down (for a while anyway) by US authorities not too long ago, and it would be extremely sadfunny if that takedown ever turns out to have coincided (taking into account government/bureaucratic slowness) with OpenAI having finished downloading or processing all of the library's content.
They'd have to hack it, or pay/donate a lot to get all those books, though. Z Lib only allows you to download 10 books a day as a free user. The problem now is that the only way to donate seems to be crypto, or some Chinese gift cards. I'm not sure how much of this is because of US authorities directly vs. how many "high risk processors" were taken down by disconnecting Russia from SWIFT, but either way, it's not convenient to support them anymore. Not that people don't, of course.
