AI Labs Quietly Buy Up Old Books by the Million – And Shred Them for Training Data
Booksellers say some buyers want thousands of old titles for AI training, and Anthropic has acknowledged spending millions on physical books.
- Secondhand booksellers across Europe and beyond are reporting a surge in large, unexplained orders, raising suspicions that artificial intelligence companies are acquiring physical books for training data.
- Anthropic's 'Project Panama' previously revealed a program to purchase and destroy physical books for training data, a practice District Judge William Alsup ruled qualifies as fair use under copyright law.
- A 404 Media investigation tracked a rare book to an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas, Nevada, where employees destroy books to accelerate scanning.
- Stuart Manley, co-owner of Barter Books in Northumberland, told the BBC that one recent order matched his shop's weekly sales—a pattern he has never seen in 30 years of trade.
- ISBNdb previously promoted a service supplying up to one million books per order for AI training, though Derek Walker, owner of McNaughtan's in Edinburgh, expressed concerns about destroying rare editions.
15 Articles
15 Articles
Knowledge theft? This AI company is buying rare books, then destroying them after scanning
AI companies are reportedly exploiting books for their knowledge. A recent investigation found rare titles being bought in bulk, scanned at an Amazon facility and then destroyed, with the knowledge inside turned into AI training data.
AI companies are buying used books by the thousands. Some may be destroyed for training
Not too many years ago, before the dawn of Kindles, used bookstores were a refuge for budget-minded, voracious readers. As the industry evolved, many suffered. Now they’re seeing a resurgence in sales, but the customers increasingly aren’t bookworms. They’re AI companies. Barter Books, for instance, typically sells 2,000 to 3,000 books per week, which isn’t bad for a used bookstore in Northumberland, the least densely populated county in England…
AI firms suspected of buying and destroying secondhand books
Secondhand booksellers across Europe and beyond are reporting a surge in large, unexplained orders for old and obscure titles, raising suspicions that artificial intelligence companies are buying physical books for training data. The orders often contain books with no clear connection to one another, from foreign-language novels and academic works to magazines and specialist histories. Sellers say the scale and pattern differ from normal trade.
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