Are your books in pirate libraries?

Authors, their agents and their lawyers often want to know which of an author's works appear, and when, in the pirate libraries named in the AI copyright cases (the LibGen catalogs and Z-Library, through the PiLiMi mirror and later catalogs) and in the Books3 file list; the Internet Archive’s lending library, a nonprofit library and not a pirate site, is listed separately because pending AI cases allege that AI companies obtained its lending books (no court has found that). This report lists the matching records, edition by edition, with candidate U.S. registration matches, in a form you can review with your lawyer or keep with your records. It does not show that any company copied or used a work. Authors left off the Bartz v. Anthropic Works List (no ISBN, late or collective registration, a mismatch) kept their claims; see Left out of the Anthropic settlement?

Use them first. The settlement’s lookup tells you whether a book is on the Bartz Works List, and The Atlantic’s search covers one early-2025 copy of LibGen. Our free check covers 25 dated LibGen catalogs, Z-Library, Books3 and the Internet Archive. The paid report adds the dates of each listing against each documented download, the file records, and your matched registrations with a registration-date screen relevant to whether statutory damages may be available.

Twenty-five Library Genesis catalog snapshots (non-fiction and fiction database dumps) from November 14, 2015 to June 3, 2025, preserved by the Internet Archive; the Pirate Library Mirror index of Z-Library (a metadata-only copy re-hosted on Hugging Face, with its release lists); later Z-Library records from Anna’s Archive’s index (August 2022 to August 2023) and the MajinBook catalogue (January 2025); the Internet Archive’s lending-library catalog, through its public search API; the Books3 file list and ISBN list published by Peter Schoppert (psmedia/Books3Info); and the U.S. Copyright Office's public tabular registration data for non-dramatic literary works, January 1, 1978 through 2025. Only catalog metadata is used; no book contents are held. The report lists each file and its checksum; the Methodology has every source and date.

Possibly. The report lists the records whose author field matches the name you typed; it does not decide which of them are yours. The default "close together" match keeps the parts of your name inside one author name, which removes most co-author list noise. If you publish under a middle name or initial, search that form too — each search is its own report. A report covers one author, so it needs a first name or initial and a surname, unless the author publishes under a single name; records that give only your surname are included and marked so you can leave them out. If your report still includes another person’s books, tell us within 14 days and we will correct it or refund it.

It means no record in any of these catalogs carries that name as typed. Try other spellings, an initial instead of your first name, or a pen name. Some catalog entries carry no author at all (about 138,000 non-fiction and 40,000 fiction entries, and about 19,000 Books3 files) and cannot be found by name.

If the report is unusable, not as described, or includes books by another person with a similar name, write to support@payauthors.com within 14 days: we will correct it at no charge or refund it, as you prefer. Because the report is issued as soon as you order, we cannot refund a report simply because the results were not what you hoped for. See the refund policy.

That a record or file name carrying the name appears in a dated source: a LibGen catalog snapshot (the report says which ones, from 2015 to 2025), a Z-Library catalog (2022 to 2025), the Books3 file list or the Internet Archive’s lending library. It does not by itself show that any company downloaded or used the work. Read the full explanation.

Anna's Archive is a search engine and mirror that combines other collections, chiefly LibGen, Z-Library and Internet Archive lending books; this report covers those sources, with dates, using catalog metadata only (no book files). Journal articles are checked separately and free, by ORCID iD, name or DOI, against Sci-Hub's 2017 DOI list and LibGen's scimag database: check your articles.

No. PayAuthors provides litigation support: a data report your lawyer can work from. It is not legal advice. Whether a listing or registration matters for any claim is a question for your lawyer.