Open Access
The Ethics of Z-Library
I didn’t start taking part in any form of online book piracy until my junior year of college. While I scoured the internet for cheap versions of my course’s required texts, my boyfriend offered to search for them instead. Minutes later, he found PDFs of several works I needed. All I would have to do was download the texts, and I was set for the semester.
Z-Library was a newer name to me. I started using it during the fall semester of my senior year. In August 2022, the infamous book pirating website, which allowed users to download full PDFs of genre work, biographies, textbooks, and more, was still up and running. By November 4th, 2022, the site went dark and Colleen Hoover was trending on Twitter.
Around the same time Z-Library disappeared, a TikToker posted a guide on how to pirate Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us through the website. The post quickly went viral, and many blamed Colleen Hoover fans for the site’s takedown. Jokes and memes arose, which led to a Colleen Hoover hate train that lasted for weeks. Unfortunately for Twitter and TikTok users, the connection was purely coincidental. An article appeared on my Twitter feed some days later citing the federal arrest of two Russian nationals, Anton Napolsky and Valeriia Ermakova. The United States government charged both with criminal copyright infringement, wire fraud, and money laundering for operating Z-Library.
I had a weak understanding of why some sites similar to Z-Library were allowed to exist, while others were not. This opened up a larger conversation regarding open-access libraries—a publishing model that makes research information available to readers at no cost, as opposed to a traditional subscription model. Though it usually applies to scholarly work, some websites have still utilized the label.
One such “open-access library” is the Internet Archive. The group defines themselves as “a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.” As long as a text is available, users can check it out the same as they would do at an in-person library. At the height of the pandemic, the Internet Archive announced a National Emergency Library, which would feature over 1.4 million free books accessible with no waitlist. This would provide access to students and teachers who could no longer go to libraries in person.
The Author’s Guild, an organization that seeks to protect the rights of writers, criticized the Internet Archive heavily for this move. At the guild’s insistence, as well as publishers who claimed the site had a detrimental effect on both authors and themselves, a group of publishing houses sued the Internet Archive that same summer.
The major difference I found between open-access libraries such as the Internet Archive and Z-Library was that there was a wall in place to keep users from downloading or keeping a text permanently. With Z-Library, a user could download any book they came across, subsequently owning the text, with the only stipulation being the amount of work downloaded by the user (additionally with a basic account, users could download up to five texts a day).
Z-Library is a shadow library—not an open-access library. Shadow libraries are “online databases of books or articles that are otherwise not readily accessible.” This includes scholarly texts, electronic books, movies, and other media. They exist to bypass barriers like paywalls and copyright, providing access to all users. Legally, they fall under piracy.
Personally, I used Z-Library when I couldn’t afford all my textbooks, but that does not always reflect the experience of other individuals. There is probably a large amount of people using it to access free books, which could hurt authors. Although there are publishers and authors elated with Z-Library’s departure, I found it hard to locate articles openly critical of Z-Library. I did, however, find articles calling out book piracy.
Liz Flanagan, a smaller author in the United Kingdom, finds pirating extremely harmful. This is because many authors receive a payment for library loans based on “averaged-out data.” She argues that it is easier to go to a local library and create an account to access their available ebooks, which helps rather than harms her. When she came out with her second book, Rise of the Shadow Dragons, during the second COVID-19 lockdown, she was disappointed with the amount of readers looking to access her book for free. To Flanagan, it was a direct insult to the large amount of effort that went into the book.
Further, Flanagan believes that Rise of the Shadow Dragons might not have sold well because of pirating, though she has no evidence to prove it. What she saw firsthand were readers and fans of the series looking for a way to access her book without paying for it. She urges readers to join local libraries to access books through their in-person or online services, or to research specific discounts and sales.
But according to Danika Ellis in their article “Book Pirates Buy More Books and Other Unintuitive Book Piracy Facts,” the loss of revenue due to pirating is a difficult number to measure. It is not a matter of whether or not authors lose money from pirates. This is because pirates buy significantly more books than the average reader. Arguably, pirates have to be avid readers to know which books would be best to purchase. A survey by Immersive Media & Books 2020, cited in Ellis’ article, also found that pirates frequent the library more often, and go to bookstores when libraries do not have the books they need. Based on the survey results, Ellis says, “This suggests that book pirates are some of the most passionate readers online, actively promoting titles and fandoms.”
In another article written by Alison Rumfitt, a writer who found her books on Z-Library, she argues that the impact is minor. Each time a bookstore buys her book, she earns revenue. She does not earn money from every individual book that is sold. Rumfitt deduces that criticisms of piracy boil down to the claim that the act “is a destabilising practice that threatens the American ideals of copyright and profit.” It can hurt authors’ wallets and the publishers marketing their books, and ultimately upends the legal protection of intellectual property.
While Rumfitt believes some book piracy critics have legitimate worries, she also believes that there is a deeper problem that no one is addressing. Rumfitt worries that “when we side with the idea of copyright, we side with the structure that hurts authors in a far deeper way than losing us sales; we side with the publishers who, through their endless trend-chasing, leave many brilliant writers behind in the dust.” The dismantling of book piracy goes far beyond the author’s profits and the readers choosing to pirate. There are books Rumfitt can no longer access because they are no longer in print. Authors are abandoned by publishers after a time to promote newer, trendier books. To Rumfitt, there is a greater issue of publishers failing to value authors and pay them enough, which causes concerns about sales and profit to arise in the first place. Perhaps the issue of book piracy isn’t one of copyright but the deficient value publishers place on the authors they choose to publish.
Is it possible that book piracy has no serious effect on the publishing industry? Maybe. Will piracy single-handedly bring the industry to its knees? Not in a million years. And until publishers attach actual numbers to the alleged “losses” they face, I personally don’t see why book piracy should be totally villainized or banned outright. Open access is always a great option with no strings attached, but when all else fails, other Z-Library–adjacent sites might be readers’ saving grace. To continue supporting writers directly, however, I will participate in purchasing books when I have the means to do so.
Recently, a new domain opened for Z-Library and sent individual URLs to old users. Perhaps the two men who were arrested have a much larger team dedicated to keeping the site's legacy alive. Or perhaps someone wished to continue the valiant, or heinous, act of book-piracy (depending on your stance). Either way, piracy is not an easy issue to solve, but for now, it might be best for everyone if it is used out of necessity, not simply for want.
Hannah Mackey (’23) graduated with degrees in creative writing and publishing/editing from Susquehanna University in 2023. During her time at Susquehanna, Hannah was the director of the university’s chapter of the Forum for Undergraduate Student Editors (FUSE), the president of SU Slam Poetry, and the managing editor of Flagship, Susquehanna’s on-campus travel magazine. She enjoys writing short stories, going on deep dives into niche video essays, and playing video games with her boyfriend.