AirTag tracks rare books to Amazon Las Vegas AI scanning facility
Rare and out-of-print books are being permanently destroyed in bulk as part of AI training pipelines. A court ruling found the practice constitutes fair use when the original physical copy is destroyed, removing a potential legal check on it.
A 404 Media investigation tracked a bulk order of approximately 1,000 books, purchased on Biblio by an anonymous buyer, to the VGT3 operation inside Amazon's LAS8 warehouse in Las Vegas, where workers destructively scan books for AI training data. Amazon workers confirmed in online forums that VGT3 handles large-scale destructive scanning. The warehouse entrance displayed a logo of a Tyrannosaurus rex preparing to devour a book. Amazon stated it purchases books through commercial channels to help develop and improve the products and services its customers use, without addressing the AI training connection.
Court documents from a lawsuit by book authors against Anthropic separately revealed Project Panama, whose stated goal was to acquire books from commercial bookselling marketplaces, cut their spines, and scan them for AI training data. Internal documents described a goal to 'destructively scan all the books in the world,' with plans to scan between 500,000 and 2 million books under a single six-month vendor contract. Anthropic used a hydraulic cutting machine to remove pages before scanning with industrial-grade equipment. A judge ruled the practice constituted fair use in part because destroying the original physical copy prevents duplication or resale.
Bulk orders from sellers in the US, UK, and Europe have been reported since at least 2024, ranging from 1,000 to one million books per order. ISBNdb advertises bulk book sourcing for AI buyers while keeping buyer identities anonymous. Pre-2022 books are valued because they are free of AI-generated content. Forbes reported that AI companies buy physical copies rather than pirated digital archives to avoid copyright lawsuits, with physical ownership interpreted as entitling buyers to scan and destroy books. The cheapest scanning method involves feeding book spines into wood chippers and discarding torn-out pages after scanning. Ars Technica reported concern that the practice may be happening on a larger scale than currently known and that some rare physical copies may be lost permanently.
Elon Musk stated 'Every collection is important' in a statement about xAI, but Ars Technica reported that Musk did not rule out destroying books and that it is unclear how xAI defines 'rare.' Critics noted that scanning does not require physical destruction; one commentator was quoted as saying 'Destroying books is uncool' and suggested that tech companies 'could build a new library next to their book-scanning facilities for the cost of a few GPUs.'
A 404 Media investigation published August 19 traced an Apple AirTag in a bulk book order to Amazon's LAS8 warehouse in Las Vegas, where workers cut spines and scan pages for AI training under a program coded VGT3.
Court documents from an Anthropic lawsuit revealed Project Panama, with a goal to 'destructively scan all the books in the world'; a judge found the practice fair use because destroying the original prevents resale. Critics noted destruction is not required for scanning.
Critics respond that scanning does not require physical destruction and call the book destruction 'uncool'
404 Media publishes AirTag tracking results linking bulk book purchases to Amazon's LAS8/VGT3 facility in Las Vegas; Forbes and other outlets report on Anthropic's Project Panama court documents
Ars Technica reports booksellers suspect AI firms are buying and destroying rare books, with the cheapest method involving wood chippers
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