A US book merchant discovered concrete evidence of Amazon's hidden book-scanning practice by placing a tracking device inside a rare book shipment. The package arrived at a warehouse marked VGT3, identifiable by a logo of a Tyrannosaurus rex devouring a book—a deliberate visual signal of its purpose.
At the facility, staff members remove the book's spine, scan the entire contents, and destroy the physical copy. While book merchants have long suspected this practice, this appears to be the first tangible proof. The scanned books feed directly into Amazon's AI training systems.
The books targeted are typically older works that were never translated, have limited distribution, or exist in small print runs. Despite their obscurity, specialists emphasize these editions often retain significant historical and intellectual value. The practice raises questions about whether authors and publishers are compensated or even informed when their rare work is dismantled for machine learning purposes.