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Search engine for shadow libraries

Anna's Archive
Official logo
Anna's Archive homepage (January 15, 2025)
Type of siteSearch engine, digital library, file sharing
Founder(s)Anna Archivist, Pirate Library Mirror
URL
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedNovember 10, 2022; 2 years ago (2022-11-10)
Part of a series on
File sharing
Technologies
Video on demand sites
BitTorrent sites
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P2P clients
Streaming programs
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Comparisons

Anna's Archive is a search engine for shadow libraries that calls itself "the largest truly open library in human history", and has said it aims to "catalog all the books in existence" and "track humanity's progress toward making all these books easily available… through shadow libraries". It was launched by the pseudonymous Anna shortly after law enforcement efforts to close down Z-Library in 2022. The site aggregates data from several major shadow libraries, including Z-Library, Sci-Hub, and Library Genesis, as well as other sources. It claims it does not directly host copyrighted materials and that it only indexes metadata that is already publicly available. However, it has faced legal action from publishers and anti-piracy groups for violating copyright law.

Website

The code and data for Anna's Archive are fully open source, and it asks for volunteer contributions. It preserves its data in bulk using torrent files in order to remain resilient to website takedowns. The site itself claims not to host copyrighted materials, but it links to places where they can be downloaded.

The site provides file downloads via the servers of anonymous partners, as well as through the IPFS protocol. It has a two-tiered system of download options in which high-speed downloads are only available to users with a paid membership, while nonmembers must use slower options with browser verification to prevent abuse by bots. It describes itself as a nonprofit, claiming that donations and membership fees are mostly spent on infrastructure and that none are personally used by team members.

As of 15 January 2025, Anna's Archive includes 40,369,782 books and 98,401,746 papers, and its torrents total roughly one petabyte in size. It lists Library Genesis, Sci-Hub, Z-Library, the Internet Archive, DuXiu, MagzDB, and Nexus/STC among its "source libraries", and Open Library and WorldCat as metadata-only sources.

History

Origins

Anna's Archive was created by members of the Pirate Library Mirror (PiLiMi) project, an anonymous effort to mirror shadow libraries that completed a full copy of Z-Library in September 2022. PiLiMi explicitly acknowledged that it "deliberately the copyright law in most countries" by mirroring these libraries. Days after US law enforcement attempted to close down Z-Library in November of that year, PiLiMi member Anna launched Anna's Archive, which initially displayed results from Z-Library and Library Genesis.

Censorship and legal issues

On 3 October 2023, Anna's Archive was reported to have scraped the entirety of WorldCat, the world's largest bibliographic database, and made its proprietary data freely available. OCLC, one of WorldCat's maintainers, responded by suing the organization on 12 January 2024, claiming the scrape was the result of cyberattacks on its servers that incurred over $5 million in monetary damages and seeking an injunction to curtail the site's operations. The only named defendant in the suit denied any involvement with Anna's Archive or the WorldCat scrape. Technology writer Glyn Moody criticized the action as "costly and pointless", saying it went against OCLC's stated mission of making information accessible.

In July 2024, in the wake of the OCLC lawsuit, the site's .org mirror was temporarily replaced with a new .gs mirror to avoid falling under US jurisdiction; however, shortly afterwards, the .gs domain was suspended and the mirror reverted to the old .org domain.

In January 2024, the site was blocked in Italy due to a copyright complaint by the Italian Publishers Association. An investigation by the country's Digital Services Directorate confirmed the presence of copyrighted material and found that some of the site's servers were likely owned by Ukrainian hosting provider Epinatura LLC, but failed to uncover the identity of its operator.

In March 2024, the site was blocked by some internet service providers in the Netherlands due to a request by BREIN, an anti-piracy group.

In January 2025, the messaging app Telegram suspended Anna's Archive and shut down its channel for copyright infringement, despite the team reportedly taking precautions to avoid infringing posts on the app. Z-Library's Telegram account was suspended the same week, and neither was alerted of the action.

Anna's Archive has consistently been one of the most targeted sites of Dutch anti-piracy service Link-Busters, which sends DMCA takedown notices to search engines like Google on behalf of major publishers. It was among Google Search's top ten most reported domains as of June 2024.

The site's domains appeared in both the 2023 and 2024 Notorious Markets List of the Office of the United States Trade Representative, which identifies online and physical markets that allegedly engage in or facilitate large-scale copyright and trademark infringement. These reports describe the site as related to Sci-Hub and Library Genesis. In response to a request for comment by the Office on its 2023 List, the Association of American Publishers identified Anna's Archive as an infringing site, and analyzed its cryptocurrency wallets to find a total of $29,596.21 in received funds as of July 2023.

Notes

  1. According to a post on Anna's personal blog, they have standardized their torrents under the custom Anna’s Archive Containers format to allow for incremental releases.
  2. According to Anna's blog, they no longer host the protocol themselves because they believe it is not yet suitable for their purposes.

References

  1. ^ "Home". Anna's Archive. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  2. ^ Manos, Leda (November 22, 2022). "Free Z-Library E-Book Download Search Engine "Anna's Archive" Launches Amid Arrests". LA Weekly. Retrieved 2024-12-29.
  3. ^ "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)". Anna's Archive. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  4. "Anna's Archive Containers (AAC): standardizing releases from the world's largest shadow library". Anna's Blog. August 15, 2023. Retrieved 2025-01-17.
  5. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (February 7, 2024). "Lawsuit Accuses Anna's Archive of Hacking WorldCat, Stealing 2.2 TB Data". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  6. Son, Jihun; Kim, Gyubin; Jung, Hyunwoo; Bang, Jewan; Park, Jungheum (October 1, 2023). "IF-DSS: A forensic investigation framework for decentralized storage services". Forensic Science International: Digital Investigation. 46: 301611. doi:10.1016/j.fsidi.2023.301611. ISSN 2666-2817.
  7. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (October 13, 2023). "Pirate Sites Exploit 'Interplanetary File System' Gateways, Publishers Warn". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2025-01-17.
  8. "Putting 5,998,794 books on IPFS". Anna's Blog. November 19, 2022. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  9. "Torrents". Anna’s Archive. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  10. "Datasets". Anna’s Archive. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  11. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (April 16, 2024). ""Anna's Archive" Opens the Door to Z-Library and Other Pirate Libraries". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  12. ^ Iyer, Kavita (November 20, 2022). "Anna's Archive: eBooks Search Engine Emerges After Z-Library Shuts Down". TechWorm. Retrieved 2024-12-29.
  13. Booth, Callum (July 4, 2022). "The Pirate Library Mirror wants to preserve all human knowledge… illegally". TNW. Retrieved 2024-10-19.
  14. Van der Sar, Ernesto (October 3, 2023). "Anna's Archive Scraped WorldCat to Help Preserve 'All' Books in the World". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  15. "海賊版検索エンジン「Anna's Archive」が世界最大の図書館カタログからデータを取得、「世界中のすべての書籍の保存を目指す」姿勢" [Pirated search engine 'Anna's Archive' acquires data from the world's largest library catalog, aiming to 'preserve all the books in the world]. GIGAZINE (in Japanese). October 10, 2023. Retrieved 2024-12-29.
  16. ^ Van der Sar, Ernesto (July 8, 2024). "Anna's Archive Faces Millions in Damages and a Permanent Injunction". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2024-12-30.
  17. "OCLC Inc. v. Anna's Archive, 2:24-cv-144". Casetext. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  18. Van der Sar, Ernesto. "Key Defendant in Anna's Archive Lawsuit Denies Any Involvement With the Site". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2024-08-19.
  19. Moody, Glyn (September 23, 2024). "OCLC Says 'What Is Known Must Be Shared,' But Is Suing Anna's Archive For Sharing Knowledge". Techdirt. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  20. Van der Sar, Ernesto (July 18, 2024). "Anna's Archive Loses .GS Domain Name But Remains Resilient". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2024-12-29.
  21. Maxwell, Andy (January 4, 2024). "Silenzio! 'Anna's Archive' Shadow Library Blocked Following Publishers' Complaint". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2024-12-29.
  22. Van der Sar, Ernesto (March 23, 2024). "Dutch Court Orders ISP to Block 'Anna's Archive' and 'LibGen'". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2024-12-29.
  23. "Succesvolle toepassing Convenant Blokkeren Websites voor Library Genesis en Anna's Archive" [Successful application of Covenant Blocking Websites for Library Genesis and Anna's Archive]. Recht.nl (in Dutch). April 26, 2024. Retrieved 2025-01-18.
  24. "BREIN wil blokkering shadow libraries" [BREIN wants to block shadow libraries]. ICT Magazine (in Dutch). April 4, 2024. Retrieved 2025-01-18.
  25. "Blokkering shadow libraries bevolen" [Blocking shadow libraries ordered]. BREIN (in Dutch). March 21, 2024. Retrieved 2025-01-17.
  26. Van der Sar, Ernesto (January 15, 2025). "Telegram Shuts Down Z-Library & Anna's Archive Channels Over Copyright Infringement". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2025-01-16.
  27. Van der Sar, Ernesto (May 31, 2024). "Link-Busters Flagged Over 56 Million 'Pirate' URLs to Google in a Week". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2025-01-18.
  28. Van der Sar, Ernesto (July 29, 2024). "Link-Busters Sent a Billion DMCA Takedown Requests to Google Search". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2025-01-18.
  29. Van der Sar, Ernesto (January 17, 2025). "More Than Half of All Google Search Takedowns Now Come from Link-Busters". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2025-01-18.
  30. Van der Sar, Ernesto (June 22, 2024). "Google Search Processed a Billion DMCA Takedowns in Four Months". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2025-01-18.
  31. Maxwell, Andy (January 31, 2024). "World's Most Notorious Pirate Sites Listed in New USTR Report". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 2025-01-17.
  32. "USTR Releases 2023 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy". United States Trade Representative. January 30, 2024. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  33. "USTR Releases 2024 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy". United States Trade Representative. January 8, 2025. Retrieved 2025-01-15.
  34. "Comment from Association of American Publishers". Regulations.gov. October 9, 2023. Retrieved 2025-01-17.

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