Anna's Archive hit with $19.5M judgment

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff on May 19 entered a $19.5 million default judgment against Anna’s Archive, the online “shadow library” accused of distributing pirated books and journal articles, according to the court’s order and the publishers’ trade group. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court by 13 publishers including Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Wiley, Elsevier and Macmillan. Rakoff also issued a permanent injunction directing domain registries, registrars, hosting companies and internet service providers with notice of the order to stop supporting named Anna’s Archive domains. ### Why was the damages number exactly $19.5 million? The $19.5 million figure came from statutory damages, not a calculation of lost sales. Rakoff awarded $150,000 for each of the 130 copyrighted works listed in the suit, which is the maximum statutory amount for willful infringement under U.S. copyright law, according to the order and reporting on the case. (publishers.org) The publishers’ March 6 complaint attached an exhibit identifying the works in suit and alleged that Anna’s Archive copied and distributed protected titles without permission. CourtListener’s docket shows the case was filed as *Apress Media, LLC v. Anna’s Archive*, case number 1:26-cv-01850, in the Southern District of New York. (publishers.org) ### What made this more than a money judgment? Rakoff’s order went beyond damages by targeting the site’s infrastructure. The judgment says domain name registries and registrars of record for Anna’s Archive domains, along with hosting and internet service providers for the websites, must disable the domains and cease providing services once they have notice of the judgment. (courtlistener.com) TorrentFreak and The Verge reported that the injunction covered multiple remaining domains and was framed to reach service providers globally. That matters because operators of piracy sites often evade enforcement by shifting domains, hosts or intermediaries after a court loss. ### Who sued, and what did they accuse Anna’s Archive of doing? (publishers.org) Thirteen publishers sued on March 6: Apress Media, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishing Group, Macmillan Publishing Group, McGraw Hill, Pearson Education, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster and Taylor & Francis, according to the docket and complaint. (torrentfreak.com) The complaint alleged that Anna’s Archive hosted more than 63 million books and 95 million papers and distributed them at industrial scale. The publishers also said the site had advertised high-speed bulk access for large language model developers and data brokers, making the case not only about consumer piracy but also about dataset distribution. (courtlistener.com) ### Why was it a default judgment? Anna’s Archive did not respond to the lawsuit, allowing the publishers to seek default. Court records show the clerk entered a certificate of default on May 1. Rakoff then granted the publishers’ requested relief after the defendants failed to appear. The Association of American Publishers said the judgment was issued in *Apress Media, LLC et al. v. (publishers.org) Anna’s Archive and Does 1-10* and described the site as a “notorious pirate site.” The trade group said the order covered all domain name registries and registrars for the listed domains. (dockets.justia.com) ### Is this the first major judgment against Anna’s Archive? No. Separate reporting and court-related coverage show Anna’s Archive was also hit earlier in 2026 with a much larger default judgment in a music piracy case tied to scraped Spotify files. That earlier case involved different plaintiffs and claims, but it shows rights holders in multiple media sectors pursuing the site in U.S. court. (publishers.org) March 6 is the key starting date for the book case, May 1 is when the clerk entered default, and May 19 is when Rakoff signed the final judgment and injunction. The publishers can now serve the order on registries, registrars and service providers named in the judgment as they move to enforce it. (courtlistener.com) (lexsummary.com)