LA MESA, Calif. (KGTV) - In the past month, a La Mesa bookstore says it’s rejected dozens of orders from book brokers linked to AI companies.
Maxwell’s House of Books in La Mesa is home to some 40,000 used and rare books.
The 23-year-old bookstore carries everything from signed screenplays and general literature to rare scientific titles. Maxwell says a few months ago, he began receiving unusually large orders from book brokers and book warehouses.
"50, 60, 70 books, and we started seeing orders from companies we haven't seen before," Maxwell said.
Over the past month, Maxwell pieced together that the brokers were connected to AI companies seeking to scan books — including rare ones — to train their language models. Reports from national media helped him make the connection.
"The companies were shredding the books. They were taking the covers off, scanning the text block without the covers, because it's easier to do and then pulping the books, so the books were being destroyed," Maxwell said.
The practice became public as Anthropic, the maker of the Claude AI assistant, faced copyright lawsuits. Court filings revealed "Project Panama," in which the company bought and destructively scanned millions of books.
Maxwell says the prospect of rare books disappearing weighs on him.
"I feel like I'm living in a dystopian nightmare," Maxwell said.
He worries about what comes next for the books that survive — and for the knowledge inside them.
"Now we're facing a potential future without the original hard copies as they were written. Goodness knows what will happen to the contents of the books when AI becomes the editor, the censor," Maxwell said.
Once Maxwell identified the brokers' ties to AI companies, he began canceling their orders. He pointed to a stack of highlighted orders — each one marked as rejected.
"All highlighted ones, rejected, because they are going to book brokers," Maxwell said.
He held up one biology book order worth $175.
"This is $175, and I'm canceling it today," Maxwell said.
In the past month, he has canceled dozens of orders totaling more than $5,000 — a significant hit for an independent bookstore.
When asked whether those orders could have helped his bottom line, Maxwell was direct.
"I didn't get into this business to make money, but to promote books and reading. There is nothing more worth saving than books," Maxwell said.
He says his position on AI company orders will not change.
"I will never allow another order to an AI business as long as I am in the business," Maxwell said.
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