August 18, 2026, 9:55 am | Read time: 2 minutes
Antiquarians in Germany have been reporting unusually high numbers of orders for weeks. Often, books that have seen little demand for years are being purchased. The orders are automated, mostly occurring at night and often in large quantities. Behind these purchases is said to be a large-scale digitization project called “Project Panama” for training AI systems.
High Sales with Overlooked Books
The orders sometimes include around 100 books each. According to industry sources, these are a wide variety of titles, including cookbooks, biographies, travel guides, non-fiction, and collections of fairy tales.
Some dealers have reportedly achieved sales of up to 50,000 euros within a few weeks. Notably, books that previously had few buyers are frequently ordered.
Stefan Krüger, an antiquarian from Essen, told the “WAZ” that he and many of his colleagues have received such orders. Markus Brandis, chairman of the Association of German Antiquarians, stated: “Many were initially skeptical.” After the invoices were regularly paid, it became clear that a very financially strong buyer was behind it.
The Biggest Legal Battles in Tech History
Apple Must Allow Alternative Payment Methods for Apps
“Project Panama” Destroys Numerous Books
Insights into the background of the orders are provided by a report from the “Washington Post.” According to this, the so-called “Project Panama” by the U.S. company Anthropic aims to digitize as many printed books as possible.
For this purpose, the books are disassembled according to the report. The spines are removed, and then all pages are captured with high-performance scanners. The remaining book remnants are disposed of.
The digitized content is then intended to serve as training material for AI systems. Such systems require large amounts of text to further develop their models.
Dispute Over Copyrights and Fair Use
Anthropic was sued two years ago. The company was accused of downloading hundreds of thousands of books from so-called shadow libraries, thereby violating copyrights.
Also of interest: Massive Errors Found in Textbooks–and AI Is to Blame
The legal dispute was settled out of court with a payment of $1.5 billion. According to current U.S. law, however, training AI with legally purchased books can fall under the principle of “fair use.”
Nevertheless, criticism comes from industry representatives. “The author is no longer asked about digitization,” says Markus Brandis. Legal action is hardly possible because the law of the country where the books are scanned applies to digitization. A bookseller wrote in an industry forum: “I feel like I’m in a science fiction nightmare.”