Anna's Archive Loses .Org Domain After Surprise Suspension

Summary

Home > Piracy > Popular shadow library Anna's Archive has lost control over its main domain name. Annas-archive.org was suspended and put on serverHold status, which is an action that's typically taken by the domain name registry. The site's operator doesn't believe that the actions are related to its recently announced Spotify backup and stresses that the site remains accessible through alternative domains. Anna’s Archive is a meta-search engine for shadow libraries that allows users to find pirated books and other related sources. The site launched in the fall of 2022, just days after Z-Library was targeted in a U.S. criminal crackdown, to ensure continued availability of ‘free’ books and articles to the broader public. The site also actively provides assistance to AI researchers who want to use its library for model training. More recently, Anna’s Archive announced it had created a massive 300TB backup of Spotify, which it is slowly releasing to the public at large. Since its launch, Anna’s Archive has also received pushback from rightsholders. The site has been blocked in various countries, and was sued in the U.S. after it scraped WorldCat. Despite this legal pressure, the main annas-archive.org domain name remained operational, until it didn’t. Anna’s .ORG Domain Suspended A few hours ago, the site’s original domain name suddenly became unreachable globally. The annas-archive.org domain status was changed to “serverHold,” which is typically done by the domain registry. This status effectively means that the domain is suspended and under investigation. Similar action has previously been taken against other pirate sites. It is rare to see a .org domain involved in domain name suspensions. The American non-profit Public Interest Registry (PIR), which oversees the .org domains, previously refused to suspend domain names voluntarily, including thepiratebay.org. The registry’s cautionary stance suggests that the actions against annas-archive.org are backed by a cour...