Japanese Used Bookstores See 5x Sales Surge as Bulk Buyers Ship 50 Tons of Books to US for AI Scan-and-Shred

NTV Japan investigation cited by Tom's Hardware finds Japanese used-book shops reporting up to 5x daily sales as buyers acquire pre-2022 books by the ton for AI training. Trade data show a group company of a major Japanese publishing distributor exported over 50 tons of 'JAPANESE BOOKS' to the US since last year, roughly 100,000 volumes destined for destructive scanning facilities.