The main domain name annas-archive.org of the well-known “Shadow Library” aggregation search engine “Anna’s Archive” suddenly became inaccessible globally recently. Its domain name status was marked as “serverHold”, which means that the domain name has been suspended by the domain name registry and is subject to further review. The operator stated that this move did not affect the overall operation of the website, and users can still access resources normally through multiple alternative domain names.
Anna Archives will be launched in the fall of 2022 and is positioned as a metasearch engine for the "shadow library". Users can search for various pirated e-books and related materials through the website. The site was launched after Z-Library suffered a US criminal crackdown in an effort to ensure "free" books and papers remained available to the public.
In addition to providing download entrances for ordinary readers, Anna Archives also actively "shows favor" to artificial intelligence researchers and provides data source support for large model training. Recently, the website claimed that it had created a 300TB Spotify backup and planned to gradually release it to the public, attracting great attention from the outside world.
Since its launch, Anna Files has been under constant pressure from copyright owners and has been blocked in multiple countries and was sued in the United States for scraping WorldCat data, accusing it of illegally obtaining 2.2TB of library catalog data. Despite mounting legal pressure, its main domain name, annas-archive.org, had remained available until this time when it suddenly stopped resolving.
A few hours ago, annas-archive.org became globally inaccessible, with queries showing that its status had been modified to "serverHold". This status is usually set by the domain name registry, which means that the domain name has been suspended and is under investigation or processing. Similar measures have appeared on other pirated websites many times before.
What is particularly eye-catching about this incident is that the .org domain name was suspended. The Public Interest Registry (PIR), a US non-profit organization responsible for the management of .org domain names, has always been cautious about copyright disputes in the past and has refused to suspend disputed domain names including thepiratebay.org without a judicial order. This approach is seen as PIR's unwillingness to proactively act as the "copyright police", so it is widely speculated that the action against annas-archive.org is most likely based on some kind of court ruling or similar legal instrument.
PIR marketing director Kendal Rowe told the media that PIR was "unable to comment on this matter at this time," further fueling speculation about legal action behind it.
Some people suspect that this suspension may be related to the "Spotify backup plan to crack DRM" previously announced by Anna Files, and the copyright owner may have applied to the court for an injunction against the domain name based on this. However, there is currently no public evidence to support this statement; in the WorldCat-related lawsuit, the plaintiff OCLC has sought a court injunction to put pressure on "intermediary service providers" including domain name registration agencies, but according to available public information, the injunction has not yet been approved.
In fact, this is not the first time Anna Files has lost its domain name. In order to deal with the possible risk of domain name seizure in WorldCat litigation, the website has proactively migrated from .org to .gs domain name. However, this "precautionary migration" soon encountered backlash: the .gs registry quickly suspended the domain name, forcing Anna's file to return to its original .org.
On Reddit, the operator of Anna's archive issued a statement saying that the suspension of the .org domain name was just a "minor incident" and directed users to use other domain names to access it. "The .org domain has apparently been suspended. Our other domains are working fine, and we have added a few more. We recommend checking our Wikipedia page for the latest available domains. This type of situation is unfortunately the 'norm' for shadow libraries," the operators said.
The operator also emphasized that it does not believe that the suspension is directly related to Spotify's backup plan. As of press time, Anna's archives can be accessed through the .li and .se domain names used earlier, and the new .in and .pm domain names have also been launched, providing multiple entrances for users. However, as legal risks and copyright owner actions continue to escalate, there is still uncertainty about whether these alternative domain names can maintain their availability in the long term.