{"ok":true,"trend":{"id":6828,"platform":"hn","region":"global","key":"japanese used bookstores see 5x sales surge as books are being bought by the ton","title":"Japanese used bookstores see 5x sales surge as books are being bought by the ton","url":"https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/japanese-used-bookstores-see-5x-sales-surge-as-books-are-being-bought-by-the-ton-one-50-ton-order-sent-to-the-us-for-ai-scanning-and-destruction-multitude-of-suspicious-bulk-buys-thought-to-end-up-in-foreign-ai-scan-and-shred-facilities","first_seen":"2026-09-26T18:03:40.361950Z","last_seen":"2026-09-27T02:08:35.153544Z","last_rank":3,"peak_rank":3,"last_volume":91,"peak_volume":91,"seen_count":7,"score":90.53,"category_hint":"books","section":"culture","category":"books","summary":"Used bookstores across Japan are reporting a fivefold surge in sales as bulk buyers purchase books by the ton, including one order of 50 tons shipped to the United States. The buyers are believed to be feeding the books into scanning facilities for AI training data, after which the physical copies are destroyed.","why":"The bulk purchases are thought to be driven by demand for AI training data, a topic of intense current interest.","tone":"neutral","entities":["Japan","United States","AI training industry","Japanese used bookstores"],"summarized_at":"2026-09-27T02:30:26.964537Z","meta":{"via":"scan","lang":"en","link":"https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/japanese-used-bookstores-see-5x-sales-surge-as-books-are-being-bought-by-the-ton-one-50-ton-order-sent-to-the-us-for-ai-scanning-and-destruction-multitude-of-suspicious-bulk-buys-thought-to-end-up-in-foreign-ai-scan-and-shred-facilities","term":"book","comments":128},"nw":0.65,"promo":0.03,"kind":"news_event","importance":1.42,"hidden":false,"hide_reason":null,"judged_at":"2026-09-26T18:03:40.663987Z","title_en":"Japanese used bookstores boom as AI firms buy books by the ton","section_name":"Culture","category_name":"Books","timeline":[{"captured_at":"2026-09-26T18:03:40.361950Z","rank":4,"volume":91},{"captured_at":"2026-09-26T19:20:35.936314Z","rank":4,"volume":91},{"captured_at":"2026-09-26T20:40:48.621132Z","rank":3,"volume":91},{"captured_at":"2026-09-26T22:02:35.143934Z","rank":3,"volume":91},{"captured_at":"2026-09-26T23:24:35.352928Z","rank":3,"volume":91},{"captured_at":"2026-09-27T00:46:35.358605Z","rank":3,"volume":91},{"captured_at":"2026-09-27T02:08:35.153544Z","rank":3,"volume":91}],"posts":[{"platform":"hn","url":"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49831456","author":"speckx","title":"Japanese used bookstores see 5x sales surge as books are being bought by the ton","snippet":null,"posted_at":"2026-09-24T14:51:31Z","likes":91}],"elsewhere":[],"window":"7d"}}