Anthropic Book Purchase Scandal Sparks Controversy, Musk Promises to Preserve Original Books, Sacks Criticizes Double Standards

404 Media reports that ISBNdb is bulk purchasing old books for AI companies, with single orders reaching up to a million copies, while using non-disclosure agreements to hide the buyers' identities. Although not explicitly mentioned, Anthropic's previous Panama project has drawn attention for buying, dismantling, scanning, and recycling books. Anthropic has purchased millions of physical books, cutting off their spines for high-speed scanning, while the original books were sent for recycling. Internal documents indicate that the company wishes to keep this plan under wraps. Rare and out-of-print books may also be destroyed. Courts have ruled that scanning legally acquired books and destroying the originals constitutes fair use, but it still raises controversy. Musk has stated that he has requested SpaceXAI to preserve rare books and to scan them without dismantling. White House AI and crypto advisor David Sacks criticized Anthropic for its double standards, claiming that while it advocates for free use of global works to train models, it views competitors paying for access to Claude's outputs for training as intellectual property theft.

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