South Korea's Kyobo Book Centre received an odd request: a single purchase for 100,000 books.
Perhaps more concerning, the buyer reportedly wanted one copy of every available title, saying that the final recipient was a "data company."
Here's what to know
According to The Korea Herald, the bookstore chain declined the purchase because it could not confirm the books' ultimate destination or intended use. The order was said to have come from an overseas company with no previous transaction history with Kyobo.
The buyer didn't specify any genres or other criteria for book selection. Instead, the prospective buyer asked for single copies spanning Kyobo's catalog, a company official told The Korea Herald.
This overly broad request raised alarms. These types of large-quantity book purchases could be used as training data for artificial intelligence systems.
Kyobo said the transaction was halted as part of the routine checks it applies to large orders.
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"We had to reject the order because the company placing it was not the end recipient," the official told The Korea Herald. "We were told that, beyond identifying the end recipient as a data company, no further information could be provided under the terms of the contract."
The scale of the order, the vague explanation, and the limited disclosure reflect concerns familiar to many publishers and booksellers concerned that AI companies may be buying books to source data.
More background
The incident comes as AI is causing debates over copyright, consent, and compensation. If books are being purchased in bulk for machine training, the concern is not just the sale itself but whether authors and publishers still retain meaningful control over how their work is used.
The issue also extends beyond publishing. AI can be used to help improve forecasting, streamline logistics, and optimize clean energy systems by helping utilities manage electricity demand and integrate more solar and wind power. But the technology also comes with high costs, including massive electricity and water use by the data centers that power it.
The Kyobo case suggests booksellers may increasingly face requests that look less like standard retail purchases and more like data acquisition efforts.
What's being done?
Kyobo says its existing screening process is the main safeguard. The bookstore official told The Korea Herald that checking the purpose and ultimate recipient of large orders is routine and has not caused problems before.
In this case, the company said the information provided was too limited to approve the sale. Booksellers may begin treating unusually broad, non-specific orders with greater scrutiny, especially when the buyer has no history with the seller and cannot fully identify the end user.
The Korean Publishers Association is also moving from concern to fact-finding. It plans to survey major bookstores, secondhand booksellers, and distributors to determine whether this was an isolated incident or part of a broader pattern linked to AI training demand, The Korea Herald reported.
Beyond that survey, the association is expected to press the government and the National Assembly for stronger legal protections for book copyrights, signaling that the response could expand from store-level screening to national legislation.
The strange case comes amid concerns from authors, publishers, and bookstores around the world that AI companies may be purchasing books to train the tech — and then destroying the physical books.
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