Popular shadow library Anna's Archive has become a top target for copyright holders. In just three years, publishers and authors have prompted Google to remove 749 million of the site's URLs from its search results. Despite this immense takedown campaign, which accounts for 5% of all URLs reported to Google on copyright grounds, the site itself remains easily discoverable through the search engine.
Anna’s Archive is a meta-search engine for shadow libraries that allows users to find pirated books and other related sources.
The site launched in the fall of 2022, just days after Z-Library was targeted in a U.S. criminal crackdown, to ensure continued availability of ‘free’ books and articles to the broader public.
In the three years since then, Anna’s Archive has built up quite the track record. The site has been blocked in various countries, was sued in the U.S. after it scraped WorldCat, and actively provides assistance to AI researchers who want to use its library for model training.
Despite legal pressure, Annas-archive.org and the related .li and .se domains remain operational. This is a thorn in the side of publishers who are actively trying to take the site down. In the absence of options to target the site directly, they ask third-party intermediaries such as Google to lend a hand.
749 Million URLs
Google and other major search engines allow rightsholders to request removal of allegedly infringing URLs. The aim is to ensure that pirate sites no longer show up in search results when people search for books, movies, music, or other copyrighted content.
The Pirate Bay, for example, has been a popular target; Google has removed more than 4.2 million thepiratebay.org URLs over the years in response to copyright holder complaints. While this sounds like a sizable number, it pales in comparison to the volume of takedowns targeting Anna’s Archive.
Google’s transparency report reveals that rightsholders asked Google to remove 784 million URLs, divided over the three main Anna’s Archive domains. A small number were rejected, mainly because Google didn’t index the reported links, resulting in 749 million confirmed removals.
The comparison to sites such as The Pirate Bay isn’t fair, as Anna’s Archive has many more pages in its archive and uses multiple country-specific subdomains. This means that there’s simply more content to take down. That said, in terms of takedown activity, the site’s three domain names clearly dwarf all pirate competition.
... continue reading