Major distributor Nichipan demands explanation from U.S. AI company for mass book sales

The possibility has emerged that Nippon, a major publishing agency, may have sold a large number of Japanese books to American artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic without consulting the publisher in advance. Publishers objected to the move, claiming that the books had been shredded and used for AI learning. The situation has developed to such an extent that the industry group ``Japan Book Publishers Association'' (Shokyo) is demanding that Nippan confirm the facts.

The issue arose due to Anthropic's internal documents released in a U.S. copyright infringement lawsuit. It was stated that the company had signed a contract with Nippan Japan as part of the company's Panama Plan to cut and scan books collected from all over the world. Details such as the number of copies, price, and whether they were actually used for learning are not known.

In a lawsuit filed by three authors against Anthropic for using their books for educational purposes without their permission, a U.S. federal court ruled that the educational use of the books was considered ``fair use'' and did not constitute copyright infringement.

However, a business model is being established in which companies sign contracts with AI companies and receive compensation for providing training data. A person in the domestic publishing industry criticized, saying, ``It would have been a trick if they had purchased large quantities of books directly from distributors without paying the copyright holders for the training.''

In response to the widespread backlash against publishing companies, the association sent a letter to Nichipan Group Holdings (GHD) on September 17. They asked the publisher to respond within 20 days after receiving the information regarding the facts and consistency with the resale agreements they have concluded with the publishers, and requested that the sale of books for AI learning purposes be cancelled.

In response to an interview, Nichipan GHD commented, ``We refrain from answering questions about individual transactions, but we conduct transactions in compliance with the law.We take into account the purpose of use, compliance with laws, and social impact, etc., based on the premise of respecting rights holders.''