Secondhand book sales are booming. Is it because of AI?

Secondhand booksellers worldwide have noticed an unusual surge in bulk orders, with suspicion that AI companies are purchasing large quantities of used books to train artificial intelligence systems. A 2025 US court ruling determined that using books to train AI software does not violate copyright law, and court documents revealed that AI firm Anthropic had been engaged in "destructive scanning"—digitizing books at industrial scale and then recycling them. The practice has raised concerns among booksellers about whether rare or valuable titles are being destroyed in the process.