Hedgie (@HedgieMarkets): "🦔AI companies are bulk-buying rare books, scanning them through high-speed machines that cut the spines off, and shredding the originals. A service called ISBNdb facilitates orders of up to a million books and keeps buyers anonymous. Pre-2022 books are premium because they're free of AI-generated text. A federal judge ruled the practice is fair use because eliminating the original means only one copy exists at a time. Anthropic hired the former head of Google Books partnerships to obtain "all the books in the world."

My Take<br>This got to me. A bookseller told 404 Media that rare books with almost no surviving copies are being fed into this pipeline. Books that survived wars, fires, and centuries of handling are being shredded so an AI can learn to write a better marketing email.<br>ISBNdb's website literally says "'AI company destroys two million books' is not a headline that generates sympathy," and they still built an entire business around making it happen quietly. They offer NDAs as a feature. They coach clients to call it "digital preservation."

I've covered AI companies scraping the internet, torrenting libraries, and stealing music. This is worse because it's irreversible. You can re-upload a website. You can reprint a bestseller. You can't replace the last three copies of an 18th-century botanical text once someone shreds them for training data. And the judge said it's legal. So it's going to accelerate.<br>"We shred rare books and offer NDAs so nobody finds out" is a legitimate business model in 2026. What a timeline.

Hedgie🤗" | XCancel

Hedgie

@HedgieMarkets

12h

🦔AI companies are bulk-buying rare books, scanning them through high-speed machines that cut the spines off, and shredding the originals. A service called ISBNdb facilitates orders of up to a million books and keeps buyers anonymous. Pre-2022 books are premium because they're free of AI-generated text. A federal judge ruled the practice is fair use because eliminating the original means only one copy exists at a time. Anthropic hired the former head of Google Books partnerships to obtain "all the books in the world."

My Take<br>This got to me. A bookseller told 404 Media that rare books with almost no surviving copies are being fed into this pipeline. Books that survived wars, fires, and centuries of handling are being shredded so an AI can learn to write a better marketing email.<br>ISBNdb's website literally says "'AI company destroys two million books' is not a headline that generates sympathy," and they still built an entire business around making it happen quietly. They offer NDAs as a feature. They coach clients to call it "digital preservation."

I've covered AI companies scraping the internet, torrenting libraries, and stealing music. This is worse because it's irreversible. You can re-upload a website. You can reprint a bestseller. You can't replace the last three copies of an 18th-century botanical text once someone shreds them for training data. And the judge said it's legal. So it's going to accelerate.<br>"We shred rare books and offer NDAs so nobody finds out" is a legitimate business model in 2026. What a timeline.

Hedgie🤗

Jul 27, 2026 · 12:18 AM UTC

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Six String

@Martin00016GT

1h

Replying to @HedgieMarkets

Glenn’s right again. Buy hard copies before they vanish, he said. @glennbeck

1,491

Andrew J Horton

@aHouse0fPrayer

21m

Replying to @HedgieMarkets

Father, Make it stop. "And I will. I will stop it. I AM THE LORD."

53

Basement Dweller

@thinkingfejlgk

3h

Replying to @HedgieMarkets

So basically a judge ordered that you must shred any book that you scan? The killer of Iryna walking free, Shiloh busted for filming a child molester—is there any atrocity judges won’t commit?

1,871

Bruce Davis

@bjdavis0001

48m

Replying to @HedgieMarkets

It is equivalent to book burning in the past. A form of thought control

1,604

Bob Easton - N4REE

@TheOneBobEaston

3h

Replying to @HedgieMarkets

READ: "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury<br>dn790000.ca.archive.org/0/it…

187

🏛 Kassandra Troy ☦

@KassieTroy

1h

Replying to @HedgieMarkets

I don't suppose they can lay their hands on the most precious books, which are in museums and churches.

252

Greg

@GregHar98953592

9h

Replying to @HedgieMarkets

Shades of Fahrenheit 451.

88

Alexander Herring (Alex)@AAlex92820

1h

Replying to @HedgieMarkets

NDA's as they burn the modern version of the library of Alexandria. Shameful.

405

loco4liberty

@loco4liberty

1h

Replying to @HedgieMarkets

And they can change a few words on the “new” digital copy and no one notices.

183

kaushik raj

@shiiit_code

2h

Replying to @HedgieMarkets

Knowledge is getting transferered from one source to another , no doubt it’s wrong but the big player have holding on everything.

1,929

Susan Hogan

@mybluedog57

4h

Replying to @HedgieMarkets @naomirwolf

It’s like a cashless society-a bookless society....