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European Citizens´ Initiative Forum

Stop Destroying Books for AI data

Author: Leónard Geonov |
Updated on: 30 July 2026 |
Number of views: 870

With recent tech development and AI mass-usage , the average user has generated tons of AI media in the internet actively backfiring on AI scraping models for training. One of the biggest labs  such as Anthropic has initiated a secret operation "Project Panama" ,where they would target buying old out-of-pring physical books, cut the spine of the books and slide it into a high-production scanning machine, then shredding the book to pieces. 

This is deliberate, because  there are double-sided book scanners in existence ( such as the ScanRobot® 2.0 MDS Automatic book scanner ) that preserve the book's condition. 

A landmark U.S. federal court ruling by Judge William Alsup implicitly greenlit the process. The court ruled that buying physical books, cutting off their spines, scanning them for internal AI training, and recycling the scraps constitutes "fair use" under U.S. law. This caused data brokers to aggressively target European bookstores for physical stock throughout 2025 and early 2026. Meaning that they are buying antique books in several foreign languages only to demolish them on foreign land. 

This practice actively destroys European history and breaks European law through the exploitation of a loophole and anonymous purchases that leave no legal paper trail. 
 

Several European bookstores have called for help that they never received.


I am in search of support through a new initiative to protect future knowledge, historical value, artistry ,justice and consumer law. These devious acts should be blocked and severely punished.

Any advice and hand lend on the topic is of high appreciation

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Comments

ECI Forum User | 26 September 2026

For my personal future professional life this is a big deal. As a European citizen, I respect our culture, which is mainly rotted in history - and literature is a huge part of it. As a college student studying AI nowadays, I also do understand the need to constantly train the chatbots. However, as mentioned before, there are other ways to process physical text without destroying it. The thing that Anthropic is doing is simply inhumane or disrespectful. Rudely said, I think most Americans can never understand the beauty and meaning of deep history. Among the published documents from Anthropic is an internal planning document that briefly outlines the goals of Project Panama, where it is explicitly stated that: „Project Panama is our plan to destructively scan all the books in the world.“. Furthermore, in another statement, they immediately contradicts themselves: „None of our data acquisition programs involve the destruction of rare or antiquarian books.“. Personally, I would be glad if we talked way more about the consequences.