Tea and Tech Season 6 ~ Episode 2

In 2024, the AI company Anthropic began an internal operation called Project Panama. Court records later revealed that the company purchased millions of second-hand books in large batches. The bindings were removed, the pages were scanned at industrial scale and the remains were sent for recycling.

 

(The factual backbone is supported by the Bartz v. Anthropic court order⁠, the U.S. Copyright Office’s fair-use guidance⁠, the Washington Post’s Project Panama investigation⁠, the Guardian’s reporting on rare-bookseller concerns⁠, and Canada’s Copyright Act provisions on fair dealing⁠.)