ISBNdb, which calls itself “the world’s largest book database,” has denied aiding AI companies in shredding rare books to train large language models, after being singled out in a 404 Media story for a since-deleted article that appeared to condone the practice. The controversy, which some compare to the burning of the Library of Alexandria or the book bonfires in *Fahrenheit 451*, centers on AI firms like Anthropic allegedly buying and destructively scanning print books. The practice first surfaced last summer when a lawsuit against Anthropic uncovered internal documents referring to “Project Panama” as an alleged “effort to destructively scan all the books in the world.” A recent 404 Media story re-ignited anger with descriptions of machines slicing off book spines to feed AI scanners. Elon Musk publicly opposed the practice, posting on X on July 27: “I’ve asked the SpaceX AI team to preserve any rare books in a library and scan them the hard way vs. just cutting off the spine and scanning.” The Washington Post reported that Anthropic favored print books because they are well written and free of “low quality internet speak.” A judge ruled that using pirated books was illegal, but digitizing legally-purchased print books qualified as fair use and “transformative.” Anthropic settled with authors it allegedly pirated for $1.5 billion.