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Rare Books Shipment Tracked to Amazon AI Facility Where Books Are Allegedly Scanned and Destroyed (www.ibtimes.co.uk)
submitted 6 days ago by A404@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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Amazon is facing fresh scrutiny over the use of physical books for artificial intelligence training after an investigation reportedly tracked a shipment of hard-to-find titles to a company facility in Las Vegas, where workers allegedly cut the bindings from books before scanning their pages and eventually destroying them.

The investigation, reported by 404 Media, involved placing a tracking device inside a book from a large order and following its journey across the United States. The shipment ultimately reached an Amazon facility associated with an operation known as VGT3.

The discovery has raised concerns among booksellers, librarians and readers about what happens to physical books once they are acquired as potential sources of AI training data.

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[-] Taleya@aussie.zone 1 points 6 days ago

If you destroy the book ya don't fucken own it, nimrod.

[-] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 0 points 5 days ago

Yes... you do. That's why it's a backup copy.

If you think copyright law shouldn't work this way, great. We should should really change it to remove any incentive to hoard these scans - obviously these purchases aren't making the authors any more money. But right this second, this is the law, and that's what following it looks like.

[-] Taleya@aussie.zone 0 points 5 days ago

Try that argument with a dvd, or a music cd, or pretty much anything and see how fast you get busted for "piracy"

[-] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works -2 points 5 days ago

You mean like ripping a CD to MP3s? Which is obviously legal?

Or backing up a DVD to VHS, which is supposed to be explicitly protected, and created a legal argument for DeCSS defeating anti-copying measures?

this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2026
251 points (97.0% liked)

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