What’s Happening with Z-Library and Anna’s Archive

The two biggest names in online book piracy, Z-Library and Anna's Archive, are experiencing major problems. Our scanning system also recorded a big in the collection of pirated links. Although previously we collected and reported from 100,000 to 2.5 million pirate links per day from annas-archive and z-library. Now is only 1-5k pirate links a day.

The Shutdown: A Legal Takedown

For years, Z-Library and Anna's Archive have operated as "shadow libraries," providing free access to millions of copyrighted books and academic papers, online reading, IPFS download links. They were so massive that they became a main source for pirate links.

Here's what Reddit users are saying about Anna's archive in August 15, 2025:

Recently, however, things have changed even for z-library. Users trying to access Z-Library mirrors are getting "DNS resolution errors" for more than 95% of their mirrors

The reason? A firm representing a group of major publishers has taken direct legal action. Instead of going after the websites themselves, they went after the companies that keep these sites online. Specifically, they targeted Cloudflare, a company that provides security and performance services to websites.

Publishers filed a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) subpoena in a U.S. federal court, forcing Cloudflare to hand over information on the people running these sites. They also sent a direct notice to Cloudflare demanding that they block access to these domains. While Cloudflare doesn't host the actual files, their services are crucial for keeping the sites running smoothly and protected from other attacks. This legal pressure is a big reason why these sites are now experiencing major downtime. The document was shared on Reddit:

The Fight Continues: Other Forms of Piracy

Annas-archive website is not completely blocked, same as z-library, we still finding pirate links on live mirrors and collect IPFS/ download links, but much less.

Beyond the large "shadow libraries," there are other, less visible threats that we are constantly combating. Many pirate websites sell VIP subscriptions for access to their content. We actively search for and block links that advertise these subscriptions, just as we do with upload links/cyberlockers and links to the pirate sites themselves.

Another tactic used by pirates is the use of link shorteners and file-sharing services. They hide the real links to books behind short URLs or upload files to third-party services, which makes them harder to find. Our system continuously scans the internet to find and remove these links, preventing access to pirated copies.

After we find and block these links, our job is not done. We also send requests to Google and Bing to delist all pirate links from their search results. This ensures that even if someone is looking for a pirated copy, they will not be able to find it through the main search engines.

So, while the major pirate sites are temporarily down, this is only one part of our work. We continue to fight piracy on all fronts, protecting our clients' rights.