GoKawiilWhen Anna's Archive suffered widespread downtime earlier this month, many users feared a legal crackdown. Instead, the site was reportedly targeted by a coordinated assault on its network infrastructure. Just as it did after facing $340 million in damages and losing several domains earlier this year, the Archive quickly bounced back.
Mid August, shadow library Anna’s Archive faced extended downtime, which had many regular visitors concerned.
These worries didn’t come out of nowhere as the site has been under quite a bit of legal pressure in recent months.
Lawsuit Takes Domains Offline
In January, the site lost its flagship .org domain. Initially it wasn’t clear what was behind this action but unsealed court records eventually connected it to a lawsuit filed by music companies. This case was a direct response to a Spotify scrape Anna’s Archive announced a few weeks earlier.
The music companies obtained an injunction from a U.S. federal court to go after the site’s domain names. This took out not only the .ORG domain but also the .SE domain, as well as the .PM and .VG domains that were put in place as backups.
Anna’s Archive eventually landed on .GL, .PK, and .GD domains, which remain active today. These are connected to registrars and registries based outside the United States that, apparently, do not comply with U.S. court orders.
Two Lawsuits, $340 Million
The music industry injunction also came with a substantial default judgment that was handed down in April. This includes a $322 million default judgment against the unknown operators of Anna’s Archive, who failed to show up in court.
Anna’s Archive
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