When the file-sharing revolution hit the mainstream well over a decade ago, many site operators and users positioned ‘sharing’ as an ideology.
This altruistic belief has started to fade in recent years. For most pirate sites and services, money is the main driver, with piracy as the means to that end.
There are some notable exceptions of course, especially in the publishing industry where free access to knowledge is advocated by Sci-Hub, LibGen, and others. The law is often blind to these motivations but they are fuel for discussion, even among well-respected scholars.
PiLiMi
This year a new team entered the piracy arena in the form of the Pirate Library Mirror. As the name suggests, the team behind it is well-aware of the legal status of their operation.
“We deliberately violate the copyright law in most countries. This allows us to do something that legal entities cannot do: making sure books are mirrored far and wide,” they note.
The goal of the team is to preserve as much written material as possible. This included archiving a full copy of Z-Library, which was completed in September. That was just the start, however.
Anna’s Archive
This week, another chapter was added to the saga. “Anna”, who was one of the driving forces behind the Pirate Library, decided to release her own site, simply called “Anna’s Archive“. While this name sounds benign, its impact certainly isn’t.
Anna’s Archive is basically a meta-search engine that can find content from third-party ‘pirate’ sources. This includes direct downloads through Library Genesis forks and Z-Library, two well-known shadow libraries. In addition, torrent links are included as well.
The site presents all information in a slick and easy-to-navigate format that rivals commercial vendors. However, Anna’s Archive doesn’t come with a paywall or shopping cart.
“We strongly believe in the free flow of information, and preservation of knowledge and culture. With this search engine, we build on the shoulders of giants,” Anna writes.
From The Ashes…
The site isn’t completely finished yet and may still have quite a few bugs. But given the situation with Z-Library, the team wanted to get the search engine up and running as soon as possible.
The Z-Library links rely on the Tor version of the site, which remains online. However, the goal is to ultimately make all content available through IPFS as well. This would make it pretty much impossible to take down, similar to the Library Genesis forks, which also use IPFS.
Anna informed TorrentFreak that the Z-Library domain seizures came as a shock but not a deterrent. They only increased the team’s motivation to go full steam ahead, while being mindful of their privacy.
“For us, it underscores the importance of being careful, and the importance of this data being widely available and redundant across the globe,” Anna said.
Leave No Trace
The privacy angle is a topic that has become very relevant this week. Details of the criminal indictment of Z-Library’s alleged operators show that law enforcement has a lot of tools to track people down, even those who prefer to remain anonymous.
Anna and the team know the stakes. In a recent post, she wrote that Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyian, whose identity became public, risks being arrested if she travels to a Western country. This is why Anna’s team does all it can to remain anonymous.
“We are at the other end of the spectrum; being very careful not to leave any trace, and having strong operational security,” she wrote.
We asked a series of questions to find out more about the motivations behind the project but Anna says they’re not ready to do interviews just yet. For now, the team will focus on its archival ‘duties’.
“We are planning to write an in-depth essay about our motivations at some point,” she said, noting that in-depth interviews may be an option later.
