Booksellers are concerned that their most unique books are being destroyed to supply AI. The investigation points to a 'recycler'.

      We have discussed the reasons why AI companies are acquiring old books: those published before the internet, filled with machine-generated text, serve as a pure source of language, devoid of AI errors. This illustrates the situation from another perspective. In Australia, secondhand booksellers are worried that someone might be dismantling and pulping their rare titles to use for training AI models.

      This concern stems from a copyright case in the US involving Anthropic, initiated by book authors. Unsealed documents revealed a tactic known as “destructive scanning”: purchasing a book, removing the spine, scanning the pages, and then pulping the remaining material. The Washington Post reported that the company attempted to keep this practice under wraps, but a judge deemed it lawful as “transformative use.”

      It is now evident that this practice is widespread, with 404 Media noting that intermediaries have emerged to facilitate it. This is where Australian booksellers come into play. Several have noticed unusual ordering patterns through major secondhand platforms like Abebooks and Biblio, prompting them to inquire about the buyers.

      In many instances, the buyers were a Canadian “book recycler” named Zoom Books. As reported by the Guardian, the orders appeared to be insensible in terms of pricing and quite random. Delfina Manor in Victoria received three boxes in May and requested that the orders cease. One order combined a 1970s soil-mechanics manual with a $9 poetry book that had been unsold for two decades.

      ‘More than just objects’

      For sellers overwhelmed with inventory, these sales are not entirely negative. Nick Dawes, who, along with his wife Jenny, manages around 500,000 books, would gladly sell in bulk. However, he has a firm stance on unique titles: “If someone told me this is the only known copy and plans to cut it up, I would prefer not to send it to you.”

      Tim White from Books for Cooks shares a similar perspective. He wouldn’t be concerned about a $20 book that has half a million copies in Australia, but a unique item would be “horrific” to lose. AI is not the first entity to destroy books for profit; dealers have historically cut rare volumes apart to sell illustration plates. As bookseller Gwenyth Todd expresses, “to me, books are more than just objects.”

      Two denials, one silence

      Both companies mentioned in the article reject the more extreme allegations. An Anthropic representative stated that they have never purchased from Zoom Books, that they obtain books from standard commercial channels, and that “none of our data acquisition programs buy and destroy rare or antiquarian books.” The company added that acquiring books for model training is a common practice in the industry.

      On the other hand, Zoom Books, whose co-founder mentioned on LinkedIn that the company has been “expanding aggressively,” claims it resells books whole and does not digitize them, only recycling copies that cannot be relocated. It did not clarify whether it sells intact books to AI firms for scanning, citing confidentiality agreements in its commercial dealings.

      This silence poses a challenge. No vendor has evidence that their books were destroyed, creating a worry over the lack of transparency rather than a documented incident. A bookseller can vet a visible buyer but cannot investigate a supply chain obscured by a confidentiality clause. For an ordinary paperback, the loss may not be significant, but for the only existing copy of a work, there is no way to recover it.