Abstract:
According to publishing industry sources, a large Japanese book wholesaler admitted that it has sold a large number of books to the US artificial intelligence company Anthropic. Nippon Publishing Group Holdings, the parent company of Nippon Publishing Sales Co., Ltd., recently confirmed the transaction in a reply to a letter from the Japan Book Publishing Association.
There are concerns within the Japanese publishing industry that the spines of these books may be removed for scanning and converted into digital data to train AI. After the scanning is completed, the books will be destroyed.
Court documents from a copyright lawsuit in the United States show that Anthropic had negotiated with "Nippan Japan" to purchase books in bulk, and the Japan Book Publishing Association sent a letter requesting clarification from the other party.
The source said that in this letter dated September 17, the Publishing Association asked Nippon Group Holdings whether the books sold to Anthropic included works published by the association’s member companies.
The association also asked how the wholesaler viewed the practice of selling books in large quantities to overseas customers without the permission of the publishing house.
The source said: "It would be very regrettable if the company knew the books would be used for AI training and still sold them." The source emphasized that permission from the author and publisher must be obtained before using books for such purposes.
The source said that the Japanese retail group admitted to the association that one of its subsidiaries had been selling books to Anthropic for about a year starting in December 2024, but argued that it did not know at the time that the purpose of these books was AI training.
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