{
  "id": 478786,
  "title": "Galway bookseller suspects 'scattergun' order is for AI",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/10/galway-bookseller-suspects-scattergun-order-is-for-ai",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-08-10T14:03:52.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "RTE News",
    "slug": "rte-news",
    "url": "https://www.rte.ie/news/2026/0810/1587288-galway-books-ai/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "A Galway book retailer, Kennys, has received a suspicious order of 5,000 books from a third-party seller, which they believe may be destined for artificial intelligence programmers. Bookseller Tomás Kenny suspects the order, filled with outdated and unusual titles, is for AI training purposes. Kenny noted that this isn't an isolated incident, as other booksellers in Sweden and Germany reported similar suspicious orders. The sheer volume of these unusual orders led Kenny and other booksellers to suspect that AI companies may be bulk purchasing these books to train AI models, which are then shipped to the US for scanning and destruction. Kenny expressed concerns for authors, as AI could potentially mimic their work, rendering their books useless and sidelined. Anthropic, an AI company, recently faced a €1.3 billion copyright settlement for allegedly using over 500,000 pirated books to train its AI model.",
  "summary": "Tomás Kenny of the long-standing Galway book retailer Kennys recently got an order for \"several thousands books\" which he suspects are destined for AI programmers.",
  "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."
}