A 'bananas' order for 5000 obscure book titles fuels suspicion

Independent booksellers across Europe are receiving unusually large orders for obscure, eclectic book titles—ranging from €10,000-€50,000—fueling suspicions that tech companies are acquiring these books to train AI models. The phenomenon mirrors a January Washington Post report revealing that AI company Anthropic spent tens of millions of dollars purchasing and scanning millions of books for its Claude chatbot, which ultimately resulted in a $1.5 billion settlement with book authors. Booksellers welcome the profitable orders but fear they may be complicit in their own industry's demise.