{
  "id": 2395757,
  "title": "World's largest open library calls for volunteers to scan and preserve physical books as AI companies buy, scan, and destroy them — Anna's Archive says ‘time is running out’ as ‘knowledge is permanently monopolized on private servers’",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/21/worlds-largest-open-library-calls-for-volunteers-to-scan-and-preserve",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-08-21T14:33:36.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Tom's Hardware",
    "slug": "tom-s-hardware",
    "url": "https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/worlds-largest-open-library-calls-for-volunteers-to-scan-and-preserve-physical-books-as-ai-companies-buy-scan-and-destroy-them-annas-archive-says-time-is-running-out-as-knowledge-is-permanently-monopolized-on-private-servers"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The world's largest truly open library has issued a global call for volunteers to scan and upload books online, in an effort to prevent AI companies from acquiring and destroying vast amounts of literature. The appeal comes as multiple reports have surfaced suggesting that large AI companies are purchasing large quantities of books to use in training their AI models, often resulting in the destruction of the physical works. The situation began in 2024 when Anthropic was hit with a $1.5 billion penalty for copyright infringement, following a lawsuit over its central library of 7 million pirated books. Although the settlement affirmed that using existing works to train AI models is fair use, it also opened the doors for AI firms to buy books online and scan them, subsequently destroying them to prevent competitors from using the same materials in their own AI models. Independent bookstores in Europe have noticed a trend of suspicious orders, with books being shipped to local addresses. These orders, while still occurring in the digital age, typically lack coordination and negotiation, and include books no one would purchase today, such as \"Pass Your Driving Test, 2018 Edition\" and \"The Eddie Hobbs Guide to your SSIA.\" An investigation found that some of these books are sent to Amazon processing facilities, where workers cut off their spines and feed them into industrial scanning machines, destroying the books in the process. There are non-destructive scanning methods, but they are reportedly slower and more expensive. The preservation of original material is crucial as it prevents competitors from using the same books to train their AI models, potentially giving the original buyer an advantage. Additionally, using older books (published before 2022) that have not been \"touched by machines\" raises legal and ethical concerns. The destruction of this material could lead to a knowledge monopoly, as the only accessible version would be the one owned by the AI company and processed through its AI model. To combat this, volunteers are being called upon to scan and upload books to Anna's Archive. The blog post states that with 10 million worldwide participants, the archive could safeguard 10 million invaluable pieces of knowledge. Furthermore, the archive can assist with scanning fees and other rewards for those who wish to conduct large-scale scans. \"Time is running out,\" the blog post warns, emphasizing the urgency of the situation.",
  "summary": "A volunteer for Anna's Archive is calling for volunteers to scan and upload books to the shadow library to help preserve human knowledge for the public. The move comes as more AI companies buy, scan, and destroy books to feed to AI models, which is easier and faster than scanning the written works in a non-destructive manner.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}