Anna's Archive

Last updated

Anna's Archive
AnnasArchive Logo.svg
Official logo of the Anna's Archive website
Annas Archive Screen Shot 2023-09-26 at 12.00.29.png
Anna's Archive homepage (September 26, 2023)
Type of site
Search engine, digital library, file sharing
Founder(s) Anna Archivist, Pirate Library Mirror [1]
URL
LaunchedNovember 10, 2022;18 months ago (2022-11-10) [2]
Current statusActive

Anna's Archive is a search engine for shadow libraries. It was founded by the Pirate Library Mirror, a team of anonymous archivists, in direct response to law enforcement efforts to close down Z-Library in 2022. It describes itself as a project that aims to "catalog all the books in existence" and to "track humanity's progress toward making all these books easily available in digital form". [3] [4] [5] [ dubious ]

Contents

Anna's Archive mirrors Library Genesis, Open Library, Sci-Hub and Z-Library and has scraped the library catalog WorldCat. [6] [7] [8] [9] Anna's Archive says that it does not host copyrighted materials and that it only indexes metadata that is already publicly available. [3]

As of May 1,2024, Anna's Archive includes 31,603,758 books and 99,900,496 papers.

History

Anna's Archive was founded by the Pirate Library Mirror, a team of anonymous archivists, in direct response to law enforcement efforts to close down Z-Library in 2022. [1] [3] [7] [10] [11]

In October 2023, Anna's Archive was reported to have "scraped" (downloaded the entirety of) WorldCat, the world's largest book metadata database. Anna's Archive says that the scrape "marks a major milestone in mapping out all the books in the world" and that it allows them to "work on making a to-do list of all the books that still need to be preserved". [8] [9] In response to the scrape, Anna's Archive was sued in February 2024 by OCLC, one of the maintainers of WorldCat. OCLC says that the scrape was the result of cyberattacks on its servers and that Anna's Archive allows public download of scraped data. [12] On April 16, 2024, news reported that the only named defendant in the OCLC suit against Anna's Archive denied any involvement with Anna's Archive or in hacking the WorldCat database, suggesting OCLC sued the wrong person. [13]

In January 2024, Anna's Archive was blocked in Italy due to a copyright complaint by the Italian Publishers Association. [14] On March 23, 2024, the pirate site blocklist in the Netherlands was reported to now include Anna's Archive and Library Genesis, based on a request by BREIN, [15] the Dutch anti-piracy group with links to the Motion Picture Association that had imposed the blocklist on the local internet service providers in 2021. [16]

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 Van der Sar, Ernesto (November 19, 2022). ""Anna's Archive" Opens the Door to Z-Library and Other Pirate Libraries". TorrentFreak . Archived from the original on 2022-11-19. Retrieved 2022-11-19.
  2. "Whois annas-archive.org". Whois.com. Retrieved 2024-01-08.
  3. 1 2 3 Manos, Leda (November 22, 2022). "Free Z-Library E-Book Download Search Engine "Anna's Archive" Launches Amid Arrests". LA Weekly . Archived from the original on 2022-11-23. Retrieved 2022-11-23.
  4. Mandel, Sovan (November 23, 2022). "New e-book download search engine 'Anna's Archive' will lead to shadow libraries like Z-Library". GoodEReader.com. Archived from the original on 2022-11-24. Retrieved 2022-11-23.
  5. Staff (November 23, 2022). "New e-book download search engine 'Anna's Archive' will lead to shadow libraries like Z-Library". LiveWriters.com. Archived from the original on 2022-11-25. Retrieved 2022-11-25.
  6. Iyer, Kavita (November 20, 2022). "Anna's Archive: eBooks Search Engine Emerges After Z-Library Shuts Down". Techworm.net. Archived from the original on 2022-11-20. Retrieved 2022-11-20.
  7. 1 2 Immanni, Manikanta (November 19, 2022). "Anna's Archive: A Search Engine for Finding Pirated Books Online". TechDator.com. Archived from the original on 2022-11-19. Retrieved 2022-11-19.
  8. 1 2 Van der Sar, Ernesto (October 3, 2023). "Anna's Archive Scraped WorldCat to Help Preserve 'All' Books in the World". TorrentFreak . Archived from the original on 2023-10-03. Retrieved 2023-10-05.
  9. 1 2 Staff (October 10, 2023). "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 News. Archived from the original on 2024-01-10. Retrieved 2024-01-10.
  10. Lefurgey, Berthe (November 19, 2022).  Anna's Archive » ouvre la porte à Z-Library et à d'autres bibliothèques pirates" ["Anna's Archive" opens the door to Z-Library and other pirate libraries]. Tech Tribune France (in French). Archived from the original on 2022-11-20. Retrieved 2022-11-19.
  11. Stöckell, Marc (November 19, 2022). "Z-Library: Anna's Archive macht Schattenbibliothek durchsuchbar" [Z-Library: Anna's Archive makes the shadow library searchable]. tarnkappe.info (in German). Archived from the original on 2022-11-20. Retrieved 2022-11-20.
  12. Van der Sar, Ernesto (February 7, 2024). "Lawsuit Accuses Anna's Archive of Hacking WorldCat, Stealing 2.2 TB Data". TorrentFreak . Archived from the original on 2024-02-08. Retrieved 2024-02-11.
  13. Van der Sar, Ernesto (April 16, 2024). "Key Defendant in Anna's Archive Lawsuit Denies Any Involvement With the Site". TorrentFreak . Archived from the original on 2024-04-16. Retrieved 2024-04-18.
  14. Maxwell, Andy (January 4, 2024). "Silenzio! 'Anna's Archive' Shadow Library Blocked Following Publishers' Complaint". TorrentFreak . Archived from the original on 2024-01-04. Retrieved 2024-01-04.
  15. Van der Sar, Ernesto (March 23, 2024). "Dutch Court Orders ISP to Block 'Anna's Archive' and 'LibGen'". TorrentFreak . Archived from the original on 2024-03-23. Retrieved 2024-03-23.
  16. van der Sar, Ernesto (November 5, 2021). "BREIN Signs Landmark Pirate Site Blocking Agreement with Dutch ISPs". TorrentFreak.