piracy Archives - GrayZone, Inc.

Court Rules Against Anna’s Archive for Rampant Book Piracy

Book Piracy, Copyright Infringement / May 20, 2026

A coalition of thirteen major publishers, including Penguin Random House, Elsevier, and HarperCollins, has secured a $19.5 million default judgment against Anna’s Archive. The website is a sprawling shadow library that mirrors the catalogs of piracy havens Library Genesis and Sci-Hub. Anna’s Archive hosts roughly 99 million books and academic papers. The ruling was handed […]

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Congress Considers Anti-Piracy Site-Blocking Bill

A recent Supreme Court ruling in Cox Communications v. Sony Music has upended copyright enforcement in the U.S. The court decided that internet service providers cannot be held liable for customers who pirate content unless they actively encourage it. The decision effectively closed a major legal avenue for rights holders. This decision is prompting a

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Illegal Streaming Networks Busted in Italy and the UK

TV & Film Piracy / February 2, 2026

Italy ‘Switches Off’ Illegal Streaming Servers Just days before the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, Italy launched “Operation Switch Off,” a sweeping multinational crackdown on illegal IPTV networks. It was coordinated by Italian prosecutors and cybercrime police alongside Eurojust, Europol, and Interpol. The operation spanned 29 raids across 11 Italian cities and 14 countries. Authorities dismantled

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Anna’s Archive Sued for Data Scraping Copyright Infringement

Anna’s Archive, a decentralized piracy collective formerly known as the “Pirate Library Mirror,” made waves when it announced it had scraped roughly 86 million music files and metadata for 256 million tracks directly from Spotify. The open-source search engine described it as the largest publicly available music metadata database ever assembled. The group planned to

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Whole Lotta Scraping Goin’ On: Google and Spotify Sue

Google has filed a lawsuit against Texas-based SerpApi. They accuse the company of using hundreds of millions of fraudulent search requests to scrape and steal copyrighted content from Google’s search results on a massive scale. Meanwhile, Spotify grapples with unlawful scraping of its data, which was released on file-sharing sites. The music platform blames a

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Disney and Netflix Take Up Arms Against Anime Piracy

TV & Film Piracy / November 4, 2025

Major entertainment companies including Disney, Netflix, and Crunchyroll have launched a coordinated legal campaign against VidSrc, a prominent piracy platform. This action builds on a September operation that successfully blocked over 248 piracy domains, targeting anime sites such as AnimeKai, Anyboy, and AnimesHeaven. Massive Copyright Lawsuit Brings Together Heavy Hitters The lawsuit brings together an

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Lawmakers Address Foreign Piracy, Counterfeit Imports, AI

Legislative action that addresses problems comes slowly, if at all. However, there are currently three proposals in Congress that aim to find solutions for foreign piracy sites, counterfeit and pirated imports, and AI copyright infringement. The Block BEARD (Bad Electronic Art and Recording Distributors) Act targets large-scale, dedicated foreign online piracy organizations. A bipartisan bill

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Mangajikan Manga Piracy Site Closed Down After 185 Million Visits

Mangajikan, a major manga piracy website that became extraordinarily popular, has suddenly disappeared. This follows legal actions in U.S. courts by manga publishers that include Kodansha, Kadokawa, Shogakukan, and Shueisha. Manga’s Unprecedented Growth Mangajikan experienced explosive growth in early 2025, jumping from a few million visits in January to over 104 million in March, then

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Labels Celebrate Piracy Win but Want More From ISP

The ongoing legal battle between major record labels (Warner, Universal, and Sony) and internet service providers (ISPs) over their users’ music piracy and copyright infringement has reached a new phase. These continued court cases highlight the fight between copyright enforcement and unfettered internet access. Labels maintain the right to be compensated for blatant and widespread

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Cartoon & Anime Piracy Site With 100M Annual Visits Shutters

The popular cartoon and anime piracy website KimCartoon has announced its sudden and permanent shutdown, citing copyright infringement complaints as the cause. According to web analytics data, KimCartoon had been attracting over 10 million monthly visits and an estimated 120 million visits over the past year, making it a significant player in the illicit streaming

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