Anna's Archive Hit with $19.5M Default Judgment and Global Domain Takedown Order (torrentfreak.com)

A federal court in New York has issued a significant default judgment against Anna's Archive, a controversial shadow library accused of sharing pirated books and providing training data for AI companies like Meta and NVIDIA. The judgment includes a staggering $19.5 million in damages to be paid to prominent publishers such as Penguin Random House and HarperCollins, alongside a global injunction ordering domain registries and hosting providers to disable access to Anna's Archive's domains. The court's ruling was spurred by the operators' failure to respond, and it demands they reveal their identities to the court, although it's unlikely they will comply given their previous statements about avoiding legal repercussions. This ruling is particularly impactful for the AI/ML community due to the implications it holds for data sourcing. Anna's Archive has been a key resource for material that feeds into AI training models, raising concerns about intellectual property rights in the development of AI systems. The court's injunction is targeted specifically at both domestic and international intermediaries that facilitate the site's operations, and its effectiveness remains uncertain, especially for foreign entities that may choose to disregard the U.S. court's order. As of now, Anna's Archive's domains are still active, potentially indicating its resilience even in the face of such legal actions.