Secondhand book sales are booming. Is it because of AI?
Summary
Secondhand book sales have suddenly increased because AI companies are buying large amounts of books to scan and use in training their AI software. A U.S. court ruled that using these books for AI training does not break copyright law, leading to more bulk purchases and some books being destroyed in the scanning process.Key Facts
- Secondhand booksellers are seeing unusually large orders from companies, sometimes matching a whole week’s normal sales in one purchase.
- These books are believed to be used to train AI systems, which need lots of diverse information to learn from.
- A 2025 U.S. court ruling allowed AI companies to use books in this way without violating copyright, calling the use "transformative."
- Anthropic, an AI company, is known to have a project named "Project Panama" aimed at scanning many books by removing their spines to digitize them quickly.
- The scanning process destroys physical books, which worries some booksellers.
- The books bought range widely in subject and rarity, helping AI software learn better.
- In the UK, copyright law is stricter, requiring permission from copyright holders to use books for training AI.
- AI companies say they do not buy or destroy rare or antique books.
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