Project Panama
Project Panama is a destructive book scanning operation started in early 2024 by American artificial intelligence corporation Anthropic. Project Panama aims to develop a dataset of books for training Anthropic's large language models.[1][2]
Prior to Project Panama, Anthropic used pirated books and was sued, agreeing in 2025 to pay $1.5 billion for a settlement.[1] The class-action copyright lawsuit revealed through unsealed court filings the existence of Project Panama, described internally as an "effort to destructively scan all the books in the world".[1] Judge William Alsup ruled that using scanned books in this way constitutes fair use in US law.[3]
Operation
[edit]Anthropic began by obtaining millions of previously digitized works through digital piracy. According to court documents, Anthropic used Books3, LibGen and Pirate Library Mirror for this purpose, and may have acquired up to 7 million books this way.[4][5]
In 2025, Anthropic settled with Libgen and Pirate Library mirror for US$1.5 billion for pirating 482,460 books and agreed to destroy any remaining copies of said books.[4] Authors usually received US$3,000 per book from this settlement.[4]
Project Panama was started in early 2024, aiming to "destructively scan all the books in the world".[1] Anthropic purchased millions of used books from online retailers such as Better World Books, World of Books, and Zoom Books. The company then sliced off their spines and scanned their pages in order to train its AI chatbot Claude.[6][1][3][5][7] This process involved the use of hydraulic cutters for spine removal and high-speed document scanners. The paper was then recycled.[7][8]
The dataset was then kept private and only used for training models.[5] According to the Project Panama planning document, Anthropic did not "want it to be known that [it was] working on this".[1][5][7]
In the same 2025 settlement, Judge William Alsup ruled that the destruction and digitization of legally purchased books constituted fair use, in contrast to Anthropic's prior use of pirated copies.[1][3]
List of major acquisitions
[edit] |
- 5,000 books – Kenny's Bookshop, Galway, Ireland
- 10,000+ books – Better World Books, USA
- 10,000+ books – World of Books, UK
- Unknown number – Library Genesis
- Unknown number – De Vries & De Vries, Haarlem, Netherlands
- Unknown number – Llibreria Fènix, Barcelona, Spain
See also
[edit]- ISBNdb.com – Online bibliographic database
- VGT3 – Subsidiary of Amazon based in Palo Alto, California
References
[edit]- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Schaffer, Aaron; Oremus, Will; Tiku, Nitasha (27 January 2026). "Inside an AI start-up's plan to scan and dispose of millions of books". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 2026-02-25. Retrieved 2 February 2026.
- ↑ "A 'bananas' order for 5,000 obscure titles from a bookshop in Galway fuels suspicion". The Irish Times. 2026-08-10. Retrieved 10 August 2026.
- 1 2 3 Edwards, Benj (2025-06-25). "Anthropic destroyed millions of print books to build its AI models". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on June 26, 2025. Retrieved 2025-06-26.
- 1 2 3 Merket, Ryan (July 27, 2026). "Everything we know about how Anthropic's Project Panama scanned millions of books". runtimewire.
- 1 2 3 4 da Costa, C (July 31, 2026). ""We Don't Want It to Be Known": Inside Anthropic's Secret Plan to Destroy & Scan World Literature". Gadget Review.
- ↑ "Secondhand book sales are booming. Is it because of AI?". BBC News. 2026-08-15. Retrieved 2026-08-18.
- 1 2 3 Chartier, Tiffany (Jul 27, 2026). "The Vanishing Page: AI Firms Scan Then Destroy Rare Book Editions". Dallas Express.
- ↑ James, Kathryn (5 August 2026). "Why is Anthropic destroying books?". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 August 2026.
