Secondhand booksellers report bulk orders as AI training demand puts print books under scrutiny

Secondhand booksellers in several markets are reporting unusually large and eclectic orders for used and out-of-print books, renewing scrutiny of whether AI companies are buying physical books to scan into training datasets. The pattern follows court disclosures showing that Anthropic bought and destructively scanned large numbers of print books for Claude-related research, while the company has said its commercial book-purchasing programs do not target rare or antiquarian books.