Anna’s Archive is a meta-search engine for shadow libraries that allows users to find pirated books and other related resources.
In late 2023, the search engine expanded its offering by making data from OCLC’s proprietary WorldCat database available online.
Anna’s Archive scraped several terabytes of data and published over a billion unique metadata records. The records contain no copyrighted books or articles, but they help ‘shadow’ archivists track books already in the collection and which ones have yet to be added.
OCLC Sued Anna’s Archive
This ‘metadata’ heist was a massive breakthrough in the site’s quest to archive as much published content as possible. OCLC responded with a lawsuit at an Ohio federal court, accusing the site and its operators of hacking, unjust enrichment, and breach of contract.
The non-profit previously sought $5.3 million in damages against Anna’s Archive, in part to cover significant hardware and staffing costs incurred in response to the alleged hacking.
In the months that followed, no one came forward to represent Anna’s Archive in court. OCLC did name an archivist from the Seattle area as the potential operator, but they denied any involvement with the site and were eventually dropped from the case.
Without any defendants showing up, OCLC requested a default judgment to recoup the millions it believed it deserved. The federal court was initially reserved and referred several questions to the Ohio Supreme Court. After these questions were denied, OCLC returned with a renewed motion.
Million Dollar Retreat
The Ohio federal court previously expressed concern that a ruling on the default judgment would set a precedent beyond what was actually needed. To address this concern, OCLC stripped its demands back to the bare minimum.
OCLC dropped eight of its twelve claims to simplify the court’s decision. In addition, it dropped its claim for $5.3 million in damages, requesting only an injunction and a declaration that Anna’s Archive violates the law.
The remaining claims are breach of contract, unjust enrichment, tortious interference of contract, and trespass to chattels, for which OCLC requests a default judgment.
Enforcement by Proxy
OCLC’s new approach aims to make it easier for the Ohio federal court to approve its request. It also signals that the company already had little hope that it could recoup any damages, let alone millions.
Instead, the WorldCat publisher hopes that an eventual default judgment and an injunction would motivate third-party intermediaries to take the site offline.
“OCLC hopes to take the judgment to website hosting services so that OCLC’s WorldCat data will be removed from Anna’s Archive’s websites,” the motion reads.
While the motion’s text refers to ‘hosting services,’ the filing’s service list is more specific. OCLC is serving the legal paperwork directly on domain registrar Tucows, hinting that the registrar is a potential target for follow-up enforcement.
OCLC is asking the Ohio federal court to grant a broad permanent injunction that would:
- Ban future harvesting: Prohibit any further scraping of WorldCat.org or OCLC’s servers.
- Block distribution: Forbid the use, storage, or sharing of the data on Anna’s Archive.
- Stop incitement: Prevent the site from encouraging others to scrape or distribute the material.
- Force deletion: Require the destruction of all existing copies of the data, including torrents.
Footnote & Future Action
Relying on help from third-party intermediaries to take action against rogue sites is not unique, OCLC notes. In a footnote it links to a recent TorrentFreak article, revealing that Google has removed hundreds of millions of Anna’s Archive URLs from its search index.
“Enforcing a judgment in this manner would not be uncommon or unexpected as far as Anna’s Archive is concerned. Recently, Google removed over 749 million Anna’s Archive URLs from its search results to stem Anna’s Archive’s large-scale copyright infringement,” the footnote reads.
Of course, there was no court order in Google’s case, it was legally obliged to take action in response to DMCA takedown notices. These typically address copyright complaints, which don’t automatically apply to the metadata that’s at stake here.
With most of the complex state law questions sidelined, and the monetary demands off the table, Judge Watson has several issues to consider before arriving at a decision concerning a potential judgment and injunction.
Crucially, OCLC attempts to sidestep the court’s previous concerns about its ‘browsewrap’ contract by arguing that the operators of Anna’s Archive are ‘professional hackers.’
The motion argues that it is ‘implausible’ that such sophisticated hackers were unaware of the site’s terms of service, regardless of whether they explicitly clicked on an ‘I agree’ button.
If the court sides with OCLC, the eventual order is expected to trigger a game of infrastructure whack-a-mole, presumably starting with Anna’s Archive’s hosting company.
—
A copy of OCLC’s renewed motion for a default judgment against Anna’s Archive is available here (pdf).
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Powered by WPeMatico
