With nearly 12 million books, Z-Library advertised itself as the largest repositories of pirated books on the Internet.
With nearly 12 million books, Z-Library advertised itself as the largest repositories of pirated books on the Internet.The site had millions of regular readers who found a wealth of free knowledge and entertainment at their fingertips.
This success was vigorously interrupted last month when the U.S. Government seized the site’s main domain names. The problems were later exacerbated when two alleged Russian operators were arrested as part of a criminal investigation.
Pirates Seek Alternatives
Despite the gravity of the accusations, the public demand for pirated books hardly waned. Social media platforms, TikTok in particular, are crawling with young people eager to gather knowledge, but less capable of paying for books.
In recent weeks, this situation has triggered a search for Z-Library ‘alternatives’. Some simply went to ‘Zlib’s’ darknet site on the Tor network, while others experimented with IPFS. These sites are just as illegal, of course, but harder to take down.
The troubles have also pushed activists trying to fill the knowledge gap under the spotlight. Anna’s Archive, for example, launched a search engine that can find pretty much any book on shadow libraries, but there are other solutions too.
Telegram Bots
On Telegram, “ultrascientist” and freedom fighter ‘Nexus’ stepped up with an advanced book download bot.
“Z-Library books are now available in @libgen_scihub_6_bot. Most credits go to Anna PiLiMi team which managed to preserve Z-Library books before recent events,” Nexus wrote, illustrating the move with a militant photo.
These types of download bots are nothing new on Telegram. Z-Library already had its own dedicated bot and many alternatives were also available. But, with rightsholders and the U.S. authorities paying close attention, announcing a new version amidst the controversy was quite a bold move.
Nexus’s Z-Library addon for the bot was welcomed by many people but when rightsholders took notice, they clearly didn’t like what they saw. At least one sent a complaint to Telegram, which pulled the popular @libgen_scihub_6_bot bot offline.
Those who try to access it today will get a notification informing them that the “bot is unavailable due to copyright infringement.”
Telegram isn’t decentralized so any copyright-infringing channel or bot can easily be taken offline. This isn’t limited to books; we have seen dozens of IPTV-related channels disappear as well, some of which had more than 100,000 users.
Enter the Hydra
Nexus isn’t giving up that easily though. Instead of offering a single bot, they created a bot that allows anyone to create their own book download bot. This opens the door to a hydra of book download bots, which isn’t easy for rightsholders to track.
“Assholes inspired by Z-Lib troubles are sending claims about the book bot. We have the answer – now you may create your own book bot,” Nexus writes, explaining their motivation.
Creating a personal book download bot is indeed quite simple for those who have some basic knowledge of how Telegram bots work. These bots can even be totally private, making them harder to trace.
Nexus shared a hydra image with his announcement. In piracy circles, people regularly bring up the “hydra,” a mythical multi-headed creature that can easily regenerate when a head is chopped off. In this case, shutting down one bot would lead to many new ones.
The resilience of this bot is yet to be tested but rightsholders are already paying close attention. They will do everything in their power to find a weak spot and will likely find law enforcement on their side.
That said, the opposition against the Z-Library takedown is real, and making the problem go away isn’t as straightforward as some might have believed.
