I worked in a bookshop. I know all about this. I've seen pallets of books with covers torn off so they can be reported destroyed.

Here's a bookseller describing some of the books, which he believes are going to middlemen who are playing a sort of arbitrage with the AI companies by buying obscure titles, reselling them, and tossing away anything that doesn't sell. https://charliebecker.substack.com/p/is-an-ai-company-buying...