Anthropic's 'Project Panama' bought millions of books, sliced off spines to scan for AI training

Published Aug 7, 01:06 AM UTC

AI companies are destroying millions of rare and second-hand books to train large language models, sparking controversy over copyright and the future of physical books. Antiquarian booksellers in the UK and Europe received suspicious bulk orders from anonymous buyers, later linked to AI firms. Court documents reveal Anthropic, developer of Claude, ran 'Project Panama'—buying millions of books, slicing off their spines with industrial cutters, scanning pages, and recycling the rest. Internal documents show executives wanted the project kept secret. Canadian company Zoom Books was also implicated but denied involvement. Copyright violations are hard to prove due to legal loopholes and differing international laws. Publishers and authors are calling for stronger regulation from national governments and the EU, as AI systems trained on copyrighted books now produce low-cost AI-generated titles flooding digital marketplaces.