07/25/2026
This was in the news in January, but it's picking up speed again online this week:
AI companies are buying physical copies of books to rain AI since the ebook piracy didn't work out for them.
Ingram has an OPT-OUT Form where indie publishers and authors can make sure Ingram knows where you stand. Link to the form of in the comments.
Here's what the letter from Ingram said in January:
Dear Publisher,
We are writing to inform you of a growing trend in the wholesale book market: automated intelligence companies, including developers of large language models ("LLMs"), are increasingly purchasing physical books and other media, potentially for the purpose of scanning and ingesting content to train their artificial intelligence ("AI") systems.
These purchases may occur in the U.S. under the "right of first sale," which allows buyers to fairly use legally acquired products as they see fit, including for data extraction and model training. While such transactions are legally permissible, we recognize that some publishers/sellers may prefer to restrict the sale of their products for AI training.
At Ingram, we are committed to transparency and to honoring our clients' preferences. While we may not know the purpose of a given transaction, we will make reasonable efforts to honor your wishes. If you would like to opt out of Ingram knowingly selling your products directly to AI companies for model training purposes, please complete this form.
Please note that opting out will exclude your entire catalog from sales to AI Companies, and your opt out action will govern all future sales to AI Companies. If you have any questions or would like to discuss this further, please email your Ingram contact.
Thank you,
Ingram Content Group
