ai-ethics book-digitization anthropic copyright-law

AI companies are shredding rare books

twitter.com

July 27, 2026

1 min read

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72/100

Summary

🦔AI companies are bulk-buying rare books, scanning them through high-speed machines that cut the spines off, and shredding the originals. A service called ISBNdb facilitates orders of up to a million books and keeps buyers anonymous. Pre-2022 books are premium because they're free of AI-generated text. A federal judge ruled the practice is fair use because eliminating the original means only one c...

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AI companies are shredding rare books ↗

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Historical count: 5 · 5 saved in sample · Historical sample

Analysis ready

Community Sentiment

Negative

Positives

Scanning and digitizing old books can accelerate historical research, giving historians access to material that was previously hard to find.
Destructively scanning books could be seen as a practical solution to preserve content digitally, especially for works still under copyright.

Concerns

Shredding irreplaceable texts for AI training is not just unethical; it raises serious concerns about the future of rare books.
The practice of AI companies buying and destroying books for cheaper training data reflects a disturbing trend that prioritizes profit over preserving cultural heritage.
There’s a growing skepticism that AI companies genuinely care about the value of the material they’re destroying, treating it merely as a means to an end.