"We Are Looking for 800,000 Dutch-Language Books": Why Does a Canadian Bookseller Want to Buy European Books en Masse?
5 Articles
5 Articles
The Dutch bookstore De Slegte received an unusual order. Zoom Books, a second-hand book dealer from Canada, placed an order for no fewer than 800,000 books. This is evident from an email the company sent to the Dutch bookstore, which VRT reports on. Zoom Books has frequently been accused of buying books for AI companies, which use them to train their models.
A famous Dutch bookshop has received a most surprising proposal from a Canadian company. The latter called Zoom Books wants to buy 80,000 books in Dutch. A quantity and a destination that asks questions. For some, the objective of these books would be to train models of artificial intelligence. ...
A Canadian secondhand book retailer wants to buy 800,000 Dutch-language books. This is evident from an email the company sent to the well-known bookseller De Slegte in the Netherlands. Why the company wants so many Dutch-language books is unclear. It is often said that Zoom Books buys these books for AI companies that cut and scan the books to train their AI models with the content. However, Zoom Books has always denied doing so until now.
This Dutch bookseller thought a request for 3,000 copies was 'spam or phishing.' Instead, AI companies are scanning and destroying books to train AI
"I was shocked!" Pieter de Vries of Haarlem told Fortune. He said several other Dutch antiquarian booksellers received the same request.
The mass purchase and digitization of old books by AI companies is sparking backlash over copyright and the protection of printed knowledge.
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