ISBNdb Markets Physical Book Orders for AI Training, Raising Preservation Concerns
Quick Look
ISBNdb offers AI developers up to one million physical book titles, including non-digitized, rare, and out-of-print material, for destructive scanning, echoing a 2025 court ruling that supported replacing purchased books with digital scans under fair use, provided the original was discarded, thus maintaining the library's copy count unchanged.
AI-generated summary
Why It Matters
A 2025 court ruling supported Anthropic's practice of scanning and discarding purchased books for AI training under fair use, provided the digital copy replaced the physical one without increasing the library's copy count.
ISBNdb is marketing physical-book orders of up to one million titles to AI developers, including material it describes as non-digitized, rare, or out of print. The offer, reported by 404 Media, puts a 2025 copyright ruling in an uncomfortable new light: discarding a purchased book can support the legal premise that its internal scan replaced the original while keeping the library's copy count unchanged. [...] Cultural loss has not been demonstrated, while the incentive to treat preservation as expendable is already visible.
What to Watch
AI outlook — possibilities, not facts
Increased regulatory scrutiny of destructive book scanning practices
Likely · Within months
Open Questions
- Will regulatory bodies intervene in destructive scanning practices?
- How will this impact the rare book market?
