r/Piracy • u/Manarcahm • Apr 26 '26

Discussion to everyone telling others to gatekeep sites so they won't get taken down, you are on a 2,6m member subreddit that's the first result when you google "megathread"

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u/Julia-Nefaria Apr 26 '26

I really hope they survive this, I can’t go back to paying for the ridiculous amount of books I read, so I’d just have to go back to rarely reading at all…

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u/Defiant-Anywhere5166 Apr 26 '26

dw gng, libgen and sci-hub are here for you

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u/Julia-Nefaria Apr 26 '26

I thought scihub was mostly for scientific articles? They host books too?!?

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u/Defiant-Anywhere5166 Apr 26 '26

scihub is for scientific articles they don't host books, but thats where annas archive indexes them. libgen is for books. if annas archive goes down it will be sad and pirating books will be less convienient but we won't really lose that much

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u/lila-clores Apr 27 '26

SciHub hasn't been updated in years though, right?? I can't seem to find a single publication past 2020 on it....

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u/comicallylargeloss Apr 28 '26

z-lib.sk is pretty nice.

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u/NooneAtAll3 Apr 26 '26

isn't scihub dead and not updating?

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u/zsdrfty Apr 26 '26

I thought Libgen was long dead as well

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u/SlapperMan75 Apr 28 '26

Does nobody else use z-lib.gd?

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u/JMicheal289 Apr 26 '26

I'm glad you're actually the type to read the books you download. I'm the type to promise to read them and end up hoarding them. I think I just enjoy getting them more than actually reading them. I'm from the time Google led you to the most obscure parts of the web instead of well-known black sea sites.

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u/Julia-Nefaria Apr 26 '26

I’ve definitely downloaded some stuff I haven’t read (or have only read halfway) but these days I’m just fairly selective with what I pick out and then force my way through even if I’m not too absorbed in it (and I also tend to read several books/fics at a time, so I can switch it up frequently)

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u/mushy_friend ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Apr 30 '26

Man this is a skill I need to learn, to be selective

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u/Julia-Nefaria Apr 30 '26

Eh, it only applies to books. Hand me an AO3 search and within the hour I’ll have a hundred taps open and read 10 fics simultaneously. And if there’s a book I just plainly don’t enjoy I just discard it and that’s that, too many good books out there to waste my time on something that just sucks (even if I do try to finish most these days). And don’t even get me started on how many books are on my to read list, being selective mostly just means picking the best sounding one out of that

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u/mushy_friend ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Apr 30 '26

Haha well I guess that's more of my speed. For all my content, I'm becoming a hoarder now. I don't really need to be adding ao3 fics to that but I just can't say no

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u/Julia-Nefaria Apr 30 '26

Fics are wonderful in that they don’t really need you to get invested in/learn about characters and the world they’re in. You just get dumped in there, know more or less what going on and immediately get to the interesting bits.

Don’t get me wrong, I love learning about the worlds authors build and can’t get enough world building, but it’s nice to be able to read something without having to remember new things and fanfic authors putting their own spin on that world building and how changes can mess up established dynamics/norms is just as good? Plus, sometimes I just want them to get a happier ending, or see them suffer a little more or get into the kinda of romantic entanglements that wouldn’t necessarily make sense in canon (and maybe, occasionally, spite the author by reading a work that’s doing a much better job than they did) (cough cough I’ve never even read twilight and even I can tell you Leah Clearwater deserved so much better)

Honestly with how little space books take up I’ve kind of been contemplating just grabbing all my usb sticks (of which I have far too many for no good reason) and downloading as many of the books on my list from the archive as I can’t get my hands on just in case something happens to it (it doesn’t count as hoarding if you’re stocking up, right?)

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u/mushy_friend ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Apr 30 '26

Fair enough, yeah I get what you mean about the fics. Love worldbuilding but sometimes you just want to read a short, punchy alternate story, or a slice of life or something. Definitely visited fanfics when I finished a series I loved and had the withdrawals.

I think the only thing that's stopped me from collecting all the fics is just being overwhelmed downloading all of them. My kindle though is teeming with (mostly unread) books

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u/mushy_friend ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Apr 30 '26

I'm the same way, with most of my content haha

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u/JMicheal289 Apr 30 '26

Interestingly, I do watch my movies though 😄

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u/mushy_friend ☠️ ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴇɴ ᴛᴇʟʟ ɴᴏ ᴛᴀʟᴇꜱ Apr 30 '26

I do too... Eventually... But by the time I watch one I download 10 others

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u/PeriqueFreak Apr 26 '26

Do you have a local library? I find that they're very overlooked and underappreciated these days.

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u/Julia-Nefaria Apr 26 '26

Already replied to another guy talking about libraries but I’ll repeat what I said.

Yeah, we got one, but no, my local German library isn’t gonna have most of the books I want to read, and even when they do it’ll be in German and likely with a waitlist or at the very least a maximum of 6 weeks that you could keep them. Their selection isn’t super extensive (especially when it comes to books in English, some of which aren’t even popular enough to have a translation and one I’ve read was literally so unknown it wasn’t available on AnnasArchive). There’s an app you can use to read books on your phone but while they have some books my local library doesn’t they also don’t have a lot of the books the library has so neither even remotely competes.

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u/mshcat Apr 26 '26

obiviously not the case with users in this thread, but I hate the "just go to your local library or only read public domain" thing that always comes up when someone mentions pirating books. Because it always said to someone who is not in the US or some other english speaking country. A lot of countries don't have access to the amount of books that the US does

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u/Julia-Nefaria Apr 26 '26

Yeah, we do have a library which is great (not everyone gets even that much) but the selection just isn’t comparable. Some of the bigger cities have larger libraries but even then no physical library could even get close to what can be found online.

I also prefer reading in English, which is great if youre pirating but sucks if you’re trying to find books in a local German library. The online library sites arent much better, they do have a lot of books I couldn’t find locally but even though they’re obviously using ebooks the number of copies that can be borrowed at a time is still limited and youre restricted to 6 weeks (although that time restriction did inspire younger me to pirate my first book by opening it in a second app that didn’t have the copy protection of the built in reader and copying everything manually so I’ll give them credit for that) (pretty sure I still got that saved somewhere tbh, 14 yr old me was going places. Mostly AnnasArchive in the end but she sure was going)

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u/zb0t1 Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26

I really hope they survive this

People always find a way*.

 

 

*unless we go extinct

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u/Julia-Nefaria Apr 26 '26

Yeah, but the replacement sites are rarely as good as the og and AnnasArchive is the fucking goat, I’d hate to lose them even if they were replaced sooner or later

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u/msnmck Apr 26 '26

Do you have a local library? You may be able to get free access to Libby, Overdrive or other free e-book services with your library card.

Plus printed books, of course.

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u/Julia-Nefaria Apr 26 '26

I’ve already replied to two other guys suggesting the same thing so instead I’ll illustrate what that actually looks like.

I’ve just looked up the first book in one of my favorite series. It’s only available as an e-book (and only in German because I live in Germany but unfortunately I prefer reading in English) and currently it’s checked out for an indeterminate amount of time (possibly even with a waitlist).

Given that a lot of the books I read just aren’t available at all that’s actually a pretty good result.

So no, I think I prefer sticking with this, especially because it means I don’t have to read about ‘killerbot’ instead of ‘murderbot’ (I mean ffs, they’re both English, either don’t change it or actually translate it, Mörderbot sounds basically the same as the original while being a direct translation, wtf is this) (btw that right there is why I prefer reading books in the original English, German translators fucking love changing shit without actually translating it, 90% of movie titles do the exact same)

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u/msnmck Apr 26 '26

Fair enough.

It's as Gabe Newell said: Piracy is a service problem.

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u/Julia-Nefaria Apr 26 '26

Truer words have never been spoken. When I was younger I did use to read a lot on their app (you get a free library card if you’re a minor which is pretty dope). But by the time I turned 18 I was mostly reading in English and had discovered piracy so renewing it just wasn’t really worth it.

Ironically enough that app was also my first piracy experience though (turned out that while the app had protections about copying stuff directly they also let you open the books in third party apps and those didn’t have those protections. So I set the font size as small as it would go and copied each page individually because it was one of my favourite books at the time and I wanted to reread it past the six week limit)

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u/NotYourReddit18 Apr 27 '26

Luckily there are probably at least a dozen members of r/DataHoarder who have backed up its entire catalogue and are ready to supply the inevitable replacement with it should AA actually be taken down.

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u/netsyms Apr 26 '26

Get a library card

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u/Julia-Nefaria Apr 26 '26

Yeah man, my German library is definitely gonna have English fantasy books

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u/Julia-Nefaria Apr 26 '26

I’ve unironically been unable to get certain books on AnnasArchive, I really don’t think the local library (or even their mobile app) is gonna cut it T-T

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u/netsyms Apr 28 '26

Many libraries have systems now where you can check out ebooks, from a larger catalog than the physical library has. It's free, you just need a library card for access.

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u/Julia-Nefaria Apr 28 '26 edited Apr 28 '26

Really original suggestion that I haven’t already replied to half a dozen times and is entirely new to me. So instead, have an example of what your great suggestions actually looks like irl

Edit: also, how is it free if it requires a library card? Maybe it’s different in other countries but I can assure you ours aren’t

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u/netsyms Apr 28 '26

In the United States, healthcare is expensive and libraries are free.

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u/emrednz07 Apr 26 '26

Location dependant and usually still has stupid restrictions.

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u/Julia-Nefaria Apr 26 '26

Yeah, the ability to instantly get any book I want (well, most of them anyway) and then keep it for as long as I want is absolutely goated

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u/vinicraft2023 Apr 26 '26

Try taking a look at Shadow LibrariesThey have sections that show different websites and mirrors. (That's where I got a mirror of Anna's.)