--- title: An AirTag in a rare book led to an Amazon book scanning... description: A bookseller hid an AirTag inside a rare book that was sold in bulk, and the tracker led investigators at 404 Media to an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas called... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/an-airtag-in-a-rare-book-led-to-an-amazon-book-scanning-warehouse-in-las-vegas-08vxrwq1n twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: An AirTag in a rare book led to an Amazon book scanning warehouse in Las Vegas | daily.dev og:description: A bookseller hid an AirTag inside a rare book that was sold in bulk, and the tracker led investigators at 404 Media to an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas called... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/an-airtag-in-a-rare-book-led-to-an-amazon-book-scanning-warehouse-in-las-vegas-08vxrwq1n og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/08vxRwQ1N.png og:image:alt: An AirTag in a rare book led to an Amazon book scanning warehouse in Las Vegas 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. # An AirTag in a rare book led to an Amazon book scanning warehouse in Las Vegas **[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 6 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A bookseller hid an AirTag inside a rare book that was sold in bulk, and the tracker led investigators at 404 Media to an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas called VGT3, where staff cut the bindings off books to scan pages faster, destroying the originals. Amazon declined to confirm the scanning is for AI training, giving a vague statement about improving products and services. Workers reportedly scan the ISBN or barcode before the book itself, supporting booksellers' theory that buyers are chasing every distinct edition rather than valuable first printings. This contrasts with Anthropic and xAI, who say they don't buy and destroy rare or antiquarian books, though Anthropic does destructively scan ordinary books under its Project Panama effort and paid $1.5bn to settle a piracy claim. A 2025 US court ruling found Anthropic's use of purchased books for training to be fair use, while UK law reportedly requires copyright owner permission for both building a training library and training itself. Booksellers are split on whether this is harmful, with some welcoming sales of unsold stock and others warning that destroying rare surviving copies is a real loss. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why are AI companies buying old used books instead of new ones for training data? Books published before roughly 2022 are valued because they predate widespread AI-generated text, and training models on AI-generated output causes quality to degrade over generations. This makes pre-chatbot human writing a finite, shrinking resource, driving bulk purchases of older, even commercially minor books by companies building AI training datasets. _Developers tracking how AI training data sourcing is evolving can follow this story on daily.dev._ ### Is it legal to buy and destructively scan books to train an AI model in the United States? Yes, under a 2025 US ruling by Judge William Alsup, Anthropic's use of purchased books for AI training was found exceedingly transformative and therefore fair use, provided the physical copy is destroyed after scanning so only one copy exists at a time. An intellectual property specialist at Oxford noted the position differs in Britain, where both building a training library and training generally require the copyright owner's permission. _Anyone weighing AI copyright risk across jurisdictions can keep up with rulings like this on daily.dev._ ### How was Amazon discovered to be destructively scanning books for AI training? A bookseller hid an Apple AirTag inside a rare book sold as part of a bulk order, and the tracker led 404 Media to an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas known internally as VGT3. Workers there described slicing the bindings off books to scan pages faster, destroying the originals, and said they scan the barcode or ISBN before scanning the book itself, supporting a theory that buyers are chasing every distinct edition. _daily.dev surfaces investigative reporting like this for developers following AI data sourcing practices._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [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 - [AI Book Scanning: Just What Is A Rare Book?](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-book-scanning-just-what-is-a-rare-book--4livbix9o) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [AI firms are buying old books for slop-free training data](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-firms-are-buying-old-books-for-slop-free-training-data-t6hwh6vfl) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#amazon](https://daily.dev/tags/amazon), [#anthropic](https://daily.dev/tags/anthropic) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/an-airtag-in-a-rare-book-led-to-an-amazon-book-scanning-warehouse-in-las-vegas-08vxrwq1n) ```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":"An AirTag in a rare book led to an Amazon book scanning warehouse in Las Vegas","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/an-airtag-in-a-rare-book-led-to-an-amazon-book-scanning-warehouse-in-las-vegas-08vxrwq1n","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/an-airtag-in-a-rare-book-led-to-an-amazon-book-scanning-warehouse-in-las-vegas-08vxrwq1n"},"datePublished":"2026-08-18T12:42:54.179Z","dateModified":"2026-08-18T12:48:20.769Z","description":"A bookseller hid an AirTag inside a rare book that was sold in bulk, and the tracker led investigators at 404 Media to an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas called...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/13892e0eccd9d14dab7928ccd2dcecd6?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/13892e0eccd9d14dab7928ccd2dcecd6?_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/an-airtag-in-a-rare-book-led-to-an-amazon-book-scanning-warehouse-in-las-vegas-08vxrwq1n","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"amazon,anthropic","timeRequired":"PT6M"} {"@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":"An AirTag in a rare book led to an Amazon book scanning warehouse in Las Vegas"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/an-airtag-in-a-rare-book-led-to-an-amazon-book-scanning-warehouse-in-las-vegas-08vxrwq1n#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Why are AI companies buying old used books instead of new ones for training data?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Books published before roughly 2022 are valued because they predate widespread AI-generated text, and training models on AI-generated output causes quality to degrade over generations. This makes pre-chatbot human writing a finite, shrinking resource, driving bulk purchases of older, even commercially minor books by companies building AI training datasets. Developers tracking how AI training data sourcing is evolving can follow this story on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Is it legal to buy and destructively scan books to train an AI model in the United States?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Yes, under a 2025 US ruling by Judge William Alsup, Anthropic's use of purchased books for AI training was found exceedingly transformative and therefore fair use, provided the physical copy is destroyed after scanning so only one copy exists at a time. An intellectual property specialist at Oxford noted the position differs in Britain, where both building a training library and training generally require the copyright owner's permission. 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