Napolsky Anton

Biography

2022: Detention of Russians credited with managing the e-book shadow library

On November 3, 2022, two Russian citizens Anton Napolsky and Valery Ermakov were detained in Argentina at the request of American law enforcement agencies. They are charged with violating intellectual property rights, as they are considered administrators of the Z-Library shadow library, one of the largest repositories of pirated books, scientific articles and academic texts on the Internet.

According to the US Department of Justice, since 2009, about 11 million books have been posted on the pirated platform, many of which are copyrighted and cannot be distributed without a license.

New York state prosecutors have already filed charges. What punishment they may face is not specified.

As indicated in the document, at the request of the United States, 249 domains used for the Z-Library were disabled and seized.

Law enforcement officers became seriously interested in the service after writers and publishers began to complain that TikTok users advertise the service to each other as an easy way to search for pirated books and articles. The hashtag# zlibrary has 19 million views in the tiktok.

Dave Hansen, executive director of the Authors Alliance, a nonprofit organization that promotes authors, noted that students and researchers who are forced to use pirated content will have the hardest time due to problems with the library. Hansen considers the system of paid access to scientific articles "broken."

The head of the Authors Guild, Mary Rasenberger, dubbed the arrest of alleged Z-Library operators "one of the biggest breakthroughs in the fight against criminal e-book piracy to date."

The Authors Guild is the oldest American professional writers association dedicated to free speech and copyright protection^[1]

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