Anthropic's 'Project Panama' buys millions of second-hand books, slices off spines, scans pages, recycles remains

Published Aug 7, 01:06 AM UTC

AI companies are reportedly destroying millions of rare and second-hand books to train large language models, raising serious concerns about copyright infringement and the future of physical books. Antiquarian booksellers in the UK and Europe have received suspicious orders for thousands of obscure titles from anonymous buyers. Court documents reveal that Anthropic, developer of the Claude AI model, launched an internal program called 'Project Panama' that involved buying millions of second-hand books, slicing off their spines with industrial cutting machines, scanning every page, and recycling the rest. Internal documents show executives wanted to keep the project secret. The trend has sparked fresh concerns about copyright violations, which are difficult to prove due to legal loopholes and varying international laws. Publishers and authors are calling for stronger regulation from national governments and the EU to address the unauthorized use of copyrighted works in AI training datasets.