Amazon is reportedly buying large quantities of secondhand and rare books, cutting off their bindings and scanning the pages for artificial intelligence development. A tracking device placed by 404 Media in a book from a bulk Biblio order led to an Amazon warehouse complex in Las Vegas, where workers describe an operation dedicated to scanning books.
The tracked shipment moved through California, Wisconsin and Colorado before arriving at Amazon’s LAS8 facility. According to 404 Media’s investigation, a separate operation at the site, known as VGT3, receives books, scans their barcodes and prepares them for digitisation. Workers posting in Amazon employee forums say some staff cut books while others scan ISBNs, the identifiers assigned to published titles.
Amazon confirmed that it buys books through commercial channels to improve its products and services. However, the company did not answer questions about destructive scanning, the number of facilities involved or whether the digitised texts train its AI models.
Why secondhand sellers are concerned
Independent booksellers have reported unusually large and seemingly random orders over the past year. The BBC reports that sellers have sent volumes ranging from obscure Latin works to popular fiction to distant warehouses. Some sellers suspect AI companies are seeking texts that are unavailable online and therefore useful for training large language models.
The practice has gained attention after court documents in an authors’ lawsuit against Anthropic described “Project Panama”, an effort to acquire, destructively scan and digitise books. A US judge found Anthropic’s use of legally purchased books for AI training to be fair use in that case.
Booksellers say the commercial demand can help move long-unsold stock. But they also warn that destructive scanning may eliminate scarce editions with historical, intellectual or cultural value. The reported Amazon operation raises similar concerns, particularly where copies are rare or published in less widely spoken languages.
Sources
- Investigation: Amazon is buying huge quantities of rare books, scanning them for AI, and destroying them; a tracked Biblio order went to its Las Vegas facility – 404 Media
- Secondhand book sales are booming. Is it because of AI? – BBC News
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