Japanese book wholesaler admits to selling books to Anthropic.

A major Japanese book distributor has admitted to selling a large number of books to U.S. artificial intelligence company Anthropic, according to publishing industry sources. Nippan Group Holdings, the parent company of Nippon Shuppan Hanbai, confirmed the transaction in a recent letter responding to the Japan Book Publishers Association. There are concerns within Japan's publishing industry that these books may have their spines removed for scanning and conversion into digital data to train AI, with the books to be destroyed after scanning. The association also asked how the distributor views the act of selling books in large quantities to overseas clients without the permission of publishers. "If the company sold the books knowing they would be used for AI training, it is truly regrettable," the source said. The source stressed that permission from authors and publishers must be obtained before using books for such purposes. Nippan Group admitted to the association that one of its subsidiaries had been selling books to Anthropic for about a year since December 2024, but argued it did not know at the time that the books were intended for AI training, according to the source.