this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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[–] SnoringEarthworm@sh.itjust.works 141 points 1 week ago

I will always side against the multi-billion dollar corporation.

[–] alastel@lemmy.ml 127 points 1 week ago

Fuck the copyright mafia. All the fascist tech bros trained their enslopification brainrotting engines on anna's archive without anyone in power batting an eye but I guess burn everything because someone might want to listen to a song.

[–] mrsilkworm@piefed.social 78 points 1 week ago (14 children)

If you don't own what you pay for, then pirating is not unethical. Period.

[–] webkitten@piefed.social 1 points 5 days ago

If media companies make it impossible to buy and own content, then pirating is not unethical.

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[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 50 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Earlier, I wasn't convinced this was due to Spotify because it happened incredibly quickly after the news about the scraping. Two weeks or so after AA's announcement, I'd hardly believe this sort of domain takedown can be carried out so swiftly, without the pirated material even being available on the site yet. Guess I was wrong, Spotify money can do miracles.

[–] Zombie@feddit.uk 46 points 1 week ago

Funny how the same doesn't happen when X hosts CSAM though... Money truly can do miracles

[–] ChaosSpectre@lemmy.zip 39 points 1 week ago

Glad they can throw money at this, but still pay artists dogshit

[–] Fijxu@programming.dev 46 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I stopped believing in DMCA/DRM/Copyright legality when big tech can use pirated content for their AI training and not pay a cent for it because the judge said "Is fair use" or whatever

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[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 36 points 1 week ago

Such widespread and illegal infringement would irreparably harm the music industry.

waow-based

[–] sopularity_fax@sopuli.xyz 30 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I feel like the whole Spotify thing was a misstep, I really dont know what to make of the whole thing

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 57 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They poked the Beast. I admire their moxy, and I hope they survive.

[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 week ago

It was a big ball move for sure, but they should probably get their domain name game good now that they're doing stuff like this

[–] altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It seems like overstretching the image of primarly-bookhunting piracy community. It could've been Anna's Playlist or something. Next we'd hear the FitGirl's name is Anya too.

Having a resource with a distinct field of interest and set of challenges, foes, arguments makes way more sense to me. In public perception, stealing a book and stealing a CD, or a movie are waslty different cases, and being book-first was their natural advantage in claiming the high horse in every discussion.

[–] sopularity_fax@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Like I dont get why they had to take credit for it. Like, fine, find an anonymous way to distribute and seed it initially, I just dont get why they felt like they needed to stamp their brand on it

[–] altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 week ago

I guess, besides stupid pride and challenging copyright fuckos, it also whitelists these uploads as coming from a reputable source, shows that's the community is alive and still kicking.

[–] brooke592@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 week ago

Nah. It was great and we should see more of it.

Stop being afraid to fight because your enemies might fight back.

[–] protogen420@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

so how do I access it now?

[–] Cenotaph@mander.xyz 45 points 1 week ago

Only the .org domain got seized. You can still use one of several backup domains:

While there, consider donating to help preserve the modern day Library of Alexandria!

[–] atropa@piefed.social 9 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 23 points 1 week ago (28 children)

I never jumped on board with it. But people use it and it's news.

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[–] slothrop@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I still use smoke signals to communicate afar.

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[–] fyrilsol@kbin.melroy.org 8 points 1 week ago (3 children)

The people running Anna's Archive should've really known better. At one hand, I'm appreciative for what they attempted to do. But on the other hand, they've really painted a big target on their backs by scraping on Spotify. Now they have the RIAA legion sickened on them and they're probably now going to get nuked by lawsuits and appeals. So, in a sense, Anna's Archive kinda went and blew themselves up, screwing people out of a good source.

[–] slothrop@lemmy.ca 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They should have stayed secret so only you, my friend's neighbour's 2nd cousin, once removed, and I knew about them.

[–] fyrilsol@kbin.melroy.org 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's honestly how piracy in general should be. But as we've learned, have learned and seemingly continue to learn. That, the reason a number of great piracy sources go down the way they did was because, someone had a very big mouth and drew attention that ended up costing us great sources that had lasted a good long while.

These days, it's get your pirating in as much as you can, take your loot and provide only to those who know how and when to shut up.

[–] black0ut@pawb.social 18 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Piracy (and Anna's Archive)'s mission is to share information, especially culture, with everyone, regardless of their ability to pay for it and regardless of the geoblocks. Keeping the service hidden may benefit you and the few people that know about it, but it isn't the purpose of these sites. They felt they were protected enough, and they decided to take another step towards their objective, that's it.

In practice, nothing's gonna happen. They already have 4 different domains. Even if they managed to seize the servers and cancel every domain, all of Anna's Archive data is out there on public torrents, and their software is also FOSS. Anyone can make a mirror.

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[–] chgxvjh@hexbear.net 18 points 1 week ago

I don't think you can run a service like that if you are afraid of copyright lawsuits.

[–] Sibbo@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

How is Anna's Archive legal to begin with?

[–] cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 31 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It isn't.

There's an Ars Technica article published yesterday or the day before about the book metadata scraping, and a representative for AA came right out and said they deliberately violate copyright law in most countries.

They believe, apparently, that collecting information is more valuable than being legal. In that case, they were ordered by a court to delete the data they scraped and they were not expected to comply (and have not done so). The .org suspension was thought to be related to that. Apparently it is not.

[–] pirateKaiser@sh.itjust.works 17 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They believe, apparently, that collecting information is more valuable than being legal

Woah woah woah there cowboy! That's only ok when you're big tech, not when you do it against them. Sheesh, the nerve on this guy...

Yeah like it's fine if you're Meta (Facebook) and you pirate books to train AI, but if you say it's for human knowledge, so that a poor person in a third world country who might pull in $100 a month can still have access to books and music... they figure it's worth it if a bunch of spoiled Americans can also get it for free, as long as they seed.

[–] brooke592@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago

We need to move away from the DNS as quickly as possible.

It's just another tool of control.

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