A Korea JoongAng Daily investigation published October 18, 2026, reported shipping records naming book distributors in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, with Better World Books (BWB) listed as a buyer or recipient. Meeting notes described Anthropic’s supply discussions with distributors in connection with Project Panama. The reported shipment totals vary by market and record scope.
The reported shipment totals
The investigation reported the following figures from shipping records:
| Book origin or record scope | Seller or distributor named | Buyer or recipient named | Reported quantity |
| South Korea | Woongjin Booxen | BWB | 165.69 metric tons across 7 shipments, estimated at about 414,000 books |
| Japan, Tokyo pickup | Nippan IPS | BWB | 122.155 metric tons across 8 shipments |
| Taiwan | United Distribution Co. (UDC) | BWB | 563.143 metric tons across 16 shipments |
The Japan figure covers records listing Tokyo as the pickup location. The same investigation described three additional records naming Nippan IPS and BWB, totaling 80.799 metric tons, with Busan listed as both pickup location and loading port. It said the nature of those transactions could not be confirmed.
Meeting notes dated November 27, 2024, were reported to describe a completed supply agreement with Nippon Shuppan Hanbai (Nippan), internal approval of Woongjin Booxen’s terms, and a fourth UDC order still gathering internal approvals. NeoTeo previously covered a separate report about book scanning at Amazon’s LAS8 facility.
What the June 2025 court order decided
In a June 23, 2025 order in Bartz v. Anthropic, U.S. District Judge William Alsup treated different kinds of book copies differently. The court order found fair use, at summary judgment, for copies used to train specific large language models.
The order also found fair use for digital library replacements made from purchased print books under the conditions before the court: the physical books were destroyed, and the replacement digital copies were not redistributed. The court described the format change as serving storage and searchability.
For pirated copies retained in Anthropic’s general-purpose central library, the court denied Anthropic summary judgment on its argument that those copies should be treated as training copies. The order also left other copying for non-training uses unresolved.
Those holdings concerned the works and copying practices in Bartz v. Anthropic. The Asian shipment figures come from separate trade-record reporting, and the order did not adjudicate those shipments.
