In August 2026, the book industry faced an unprecedented phenomenon: bookstores around the world began receiving anomalously large orders for used books, which were then shipped to remote warehouses. Stuart Manley, owner of the historic Barter Books in Northumberland (England), who has been in the business for three decades, told the BBC in an interview that he had never seen anything like it. According to him, one recent order from a Canadian company included between 2,000 and 3,000 copies—a volume comparable to the entire store's weekly sales.
The 2025 Court Precedent as a Market Catalyst
Analysts link this surge in demand to a key court ruling issued in the US in 2025. Judge William Alsup ruled that the use of books acquired by the company Anthropic to train its Claude chatbot is "substantially transformative" and, therefore, does not violate US copyright law. This ruling effectively legalized the mass purchase of physical media for subsequent digitization and training of large language models (LLMs). As a result, AI development companies received the green light to purchase massive datasets, including rare and obscure texts.
Diversity as the New Data Currency
Orders are not limited to bestsellers or classics. Buyers are showing interest in the widest range of topics: from obscure Latin works to westerns and specific technical literature. Experts note that this diversity is a key factor for modern AI. Rare and unusual texts provide unique training data that cannot be obtained from publicly available internet sources, allowing models to better understand context, linguistic nuances, and specific fields of knowledge.
Contradictory Data
Despite the positive economic impact for sellers, the situation raises serious ethical concerns. Recently released court documents caused a stir as it was revealed that some books were destroyed during the training process of Anthropic's chatbot. The company confirmed that purchasing textbooks is a common practice and stated that their project is not aimed at destroying rare or valuable books. However, collectors and bibliophiles remain concerned: the risk of damage or loss of unique copies after digitization remains a real threat. While store owners see this as a chance to sell off stagnant stock, the cultural community fears the loss of physical heritage.
Economic Prospects and Risks for the Industry
For bookstore owners, such as David Tobin of Walden Books in North London, this trend has a dual nature. On the one hand, the ability to sell books that have been sitting in warehouses for years is a great opportunity for business. On the other hand, the thought that this knowledge could be destroyed after digitization causes deep regret. The industry is at a crossroads: on one side—technological progress and new sales markets, on the other—the threat of losing material culture for the sake of virtual data.
