--- title: AI firms are buying old books for slop-free training data description: Data broker ISBNdb is selling pre-2022 physical books in bulk to AI labs as a source of guaranteed human-authored training data, free from AI-generated text... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/ai-firms-are-buying-old-books-for-slop-free-training-data-t6hwh6vfl twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: AI firms are buying old books for slop-free training data | daily.dev og:description: Data broker ISBNdb is selling pre-2022 physical books in bulk to AI labs as a source of guaranteed human-authored training data, free from AI-generated text... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/ai-firms-are-buying-old-books-for-slop-free-training-data-t6hwh6vfl og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/T6HWH6vfl.png og:image:alt: AI firms are buying old books for slop-free training data og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # AI firms are buying old books for slop-free training data **[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Data broker ISBNdb is selling pre-2022 physical books in bulk to AI labs as a source of guaranteed human-authored training data, free from AI-generated text and data poisoning. The scanning process typically destroys the books by slicing off their spines, and ISBNdb offers strict NDAs to keep buyers anonymous, acknowledging the PR risk. The practice is driven by fears of model collapse from synthetic training data and by authors using tools like Nightshade to poison digital text. A recent US court ruling found that training on purchased, scanned books constitutes fair use, effectively blessing the buy-and-shred approach. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [AI companies destroy rare and non recoverable physical books](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-companies-destroy-rare-and-non-recoverable-physical-books-kdfpi79uv) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The Vanishing Page: AI Firms Scan Then Destroy Rare Book Editions](https://daily.dev/posts/the-vanishing-page-ai-firms-scan-then-destroy-rare-book-editions-g6gbdbxtc) · Hacker News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-firms-are-buying-old-books-for-slop-free-training-data-t6hwh6vfl) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"AI firms are buying old books for slop-free training data","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-firms-are-buying-old-books-for-slop-free-training-data-t6hwh6vfl","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-firms-are-buying-old-books-for-slop-free-training-data-t6hwh6vfl"},"datePublished":"2026-07-22T15:38:14.202Z","dateModified":"2026-07-22T15:38:36.153Z","description":"Data broker ISBNdb is selling pre-2022 physical books in bulk to AI labs as a source of guaranteed human-authored training data, free from AI-generated text...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/dc87cf9e8bf66d58114e5423778b9896?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/dc87cf9e8bf66d58114e5423778b9896?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"The Next Web","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Next Web","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tnw","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-firms-are-buying-old-books-for-slop-free-training-data-t6hwh6vfl","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"llm","timeRequired":"PT3M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Next Web","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"AI firms are buying old books for slop-free training data"}]} ```