A strange trend is sweeping the secondhand book market, as independent sellers report a surge in mysterious, large-scale orders that appear to be fueling the insatiable appetite of AI developers.
Booksellers like Stuart Manley of Barter Books have noted unprecedented bulk purchases that defy traditional retail patterns, with some orders matching an entire week's worth of sales in a single transaction.
The consensus among those in the trade is that these volumes are being funneled into AI training programs, a practice brought to light by recent court documents involving the AI firm Anthropic. Under a 2025 U.S. court ruling, using purchased books to train AI software was deemed 'exceedingly transformative' and permissible under copyright law.
Internal documents revealed that Anthropic’s 'Project Panama' aimed to 'destructively scan all the books in the world,' a process that involves removing book spines for rapid digitization before the physical copies are recycled.
While AI companies claim this is a standard industry approach, the prospect of rare, historical texts being pulped for data has left many in the bookselling community uneasy.
Experts note that the random, diverse nature of these orders—ranging from obscure Latin texts to pulp fiction—is a hallmark of AI training, which seeks out unique data to refine large language models.
While some booksellers acknowledge that recycling unwanted mass-market paperbacks is a practical outcome, the potential loss of rare 18th-century editions and limited academic texts remains a point of significant concern for those who value the preservation of physical literature.
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