Terms of Service

1. What the service is

PayAuthors lets you search an author name or ISBN against public catalog and registration data — 25 dated snapshots of the Library Genesis ("LibGen") non-fiction and fiction catalogs from November 14, 2015 to June 3, 2025; the Pirate Library Mirror ("PiLiMi") index of Z-Library (2022, two releases); later Z-Library catalog records (Anna's Archive's index of records added August 2022 to August 2023, and the January 2025 catalog as published in the MajinBook research catalogue); the Internet Archive's lending-library catalog; the published file list of the Books3 dataset; and the U.S. Copyright Office's public registration data for non-dramatic literary works, 1978 through 2025 — and buy a report (the "Report") listing the records that match. The free check returns counts and a list of the matching titles for you to confirm; the Report adds the records, registrations, files and dates behind them. The Report is a compilation of metadata: titles, author fields, years, languages, publishers, ISBNs, file names, the dates of the snapshots in which a record appears, and public registration data. It contains no book contents, and we hold none.

2. Who may use it

You must be at least 18 and able to enter a binding contract. You may search any name, but you agree to use the Report only for lawful purposes, including establishing or documenting your own or your client's interests in works, and not to harass or profile any individual.

3. Price, payment and delivery

The price is shown before checkout (currently US $95 per name searched for the Registration Details report, which includes the Copyright Office's registration status records and recorded documents; US $35 for a Journal Article Registration Report covering up to 200 articles you select; taxes where applicable). Discount codes we publish lower the price of a new report by the stated percentage; they cannot be combined, and may be limited in number or expire on the date we announce. A code that makes a report free skips payment. Payment is processed by Stripe; we do not see or store card numbers. On successful payment you are taken to a private report page from which the Report can be downloaded as CSV, PDF and JSON. The report link is valid until September 1, 2027, or 30 days after purchase if that is later; download the files to keep them. We e-mail the address you give at purchase when a new version of your report is issued. After that, write to support@payauthors.com and we will reissue the same report, with its version numbers and checksums unchanged. The result set is frozen at the time of purchase: later searches of the same name may differ if our datasets are updated. Preliminary delivery, review and versions. The Report is delivered immediately in preliminary form, as version 1. A person at PayAuthors then reviews the registration matches that affect its counts. The review is completed within 7 days after purchase. If, before the review is done, we issue a new version whose figures changed (a correction or a new analysis revision), or you upgrade the Report, the 7 days run from that new version. It can change a match’s status, and with it the counts and the date screen; it does not add records. When it is done, the reviewed Report is issued as a new version at the same link and we e-mail you if you leave an address. Once a version has been delivered, it is never changed: its PDF, CSV, notes and JSON keep the SHA-256 checksums listed on the report page, and anyone can check a file against them at payauthors.com/verify. A later correction, a new analysis revision, or a change you make to which titles are included is issued as a new numbered version, with what changed; earlier versions stay available at the link while it is valid. Work for law firms and other organizations (work-level research, lists, case support and expert declarations) is governed by a separate written engagement, not by these terms alone.

4. Refunds

Because the Report is delivered immediately, in preliminary form, it cannot be returned. We will refund a purchase where the Report was not delivered, is technically unusable, or is materially not as described, if you tell us within 14 days at support@payauthors.com. If the review materially changes the result (the reviewed version shows fewer confirmed registration matches, or fewer books passing the registration-date screen against any company, than the preliminary version), you may ask within 14 days after the reviewed version is issued for a full refund, or for a correction if you think the review got a match wrong; both versions stay available to you either way. If the Report includes works by another person with the same or a similar name, and you tell us within 14 days, we will correct it at no charge or, if you prefer, refund it. We do not refund purchases because the results were not what you expected or because the datasets do not contain a work you believe should be there. Our refund policy has the details.

5. Method and limits — please read

• A LibGen record means that the Library Genesis non-fiction or fiction database, as exported in one or more of the dated dumps we hold (preserved by the Internet Archive), contained a catalog entry with that title, author, year, publisher, language, ISBN and edition. Each catalog entry describes one file; entries describing the same edition are combined into one line with a count, and the line names the snapshots in which it appears. A record is a statement about the catalog on those dates. It does not show that any file was downloaded, copied or used by any person or company, entries that appear only between snapshots may be missed, and it is not a finding of infringement. A PiLiMi record means the Pirate Library Mirror index of Z-Library, as re-hosted in metadata-only form, lists the record and which 2022 release carried it.
• A Z-Library record means the PiLiMi index (with the 2022 release that carried it), Anna's Archive's index of Z-Library records added August 2022 to August 2023, or the January 2025 Z-Library catalog as published in the MajinBook catalogue, lists a record with that title and author. It is a statement about the catalog, not proof that any file was downloaded by anyone.
• An Internet Archive record means the Internet Archive's lending library lists a scanned copy of the book, with the date the Archive added it. The Internet Archive is a nonprofit library; a listing is not a finding of infringement by anyone.
• The free article check compares an article's DOI with Sci-Hub's 2017 DOI list and LibGen's scimag database (2020 and 2021). Article lists come from Crossref and may be incomplete or include other people's articles; the copyright in an article may belong to its publisher. The free list of selected articles shows list membership only.
• The Journal Article Registration Report adds, for the articles you select, candidate U.S. Copyright Office registrations: the publisher's serial registration of the article's journal issue (matched by ISSN or journal title and the issue's volume, number or date) and registrations whose title and author surname match the article; and the § 412 timing condition against the dated events it lists. These are candidate matches to confirm against the linked Office record, not findings of ownership, coverage or infringement.
• A Books3 record means a file name in the list of 196,608 Books3 file names published by Peter Schoppert (psmedia/Books3Info) carried the name you searched. Books3 as released is reported to contain 196,640 books; the published list is 32 names shorter. A record shows that the file name is in that list. It does not by itself show that any company copied the dataset or that any model was trained on the book. Author and title are read out of the file name; where a file name could not be split with confidence both halves are given as the author. About 19,000 Books3 file names carry no recognizable author and cannot be found by name. We do not hold the Books3 texts.
• Books3. A book counts as in Books3 only when a file in the published Books3 file list carries it. A third party (Peter Schoppert, psmedia/Books3Info) also extracted 129,635 ISBN-13s from the text of the Books3 files; because a book's text can print other books' ISBNs, an ISBN on that list does not by itself show that a book was in Books3. Reports check each such ISBN against the file list and say when no Books3 file carries the title.
• Registration matches against the U.S. Copyright Office data (non-dramatic literary works, TX and TXu, registrations dated from 1978, with a few earlier records, through December 30, 2025, as published in the Office's January 2026 tabular release) were made by ISBN where both sides had one, and otherwise by a normalized title (exact, main title only, or the same title words ignoring stop words) plus an author or claimant surname. The title methods are heuristic: a match means a registration exists for that title and name, not that the catalog copy is that exact edition. Many registrations carry no ISBN, most foreign and pre-1978 works are absent, and titles registered under another form of the name will not match. Only TX (text) registrations from the Office's tabular data are covered; sound-recording (SR) registrations such as audiobooks, other classes and renewals are not. Recorded documents (assignments, transfers, licenses and others) appear only in the Registration Details report, from the Office's bulk recordation data (documents recorded through June 26, 2025), and only where that data links the document to the matched registration; later recordations, and documents the data does not link, are not shown. A missing registration mark is not evidence that a work is unregistered. Verify any line you rely on against the linked Copyright Office record. The statutory-damages timing mark is a date comparison only: it shows that a matched registration's effective date comes before the download, dated as the later of the documented start of the download period and the library's own record of when that copy was added (catalog metadata, not independent proof of acquisition; for an event known only by an outer bound, the record date alone), or that the registration was made within three months of a publication that came before that date. Where the dates overlap, or no download date is known, the comparison is shown as overlapping or unknown and is not counted. The screen follows the timing condition in 17 U.S.C. § 412 but does not assess its exceptions, and it is deliberately conservative. It does not show that the registration covers the edition listed, that the download included the work, or that statutory damages are available.
• Name matching is by whole-word prefix within one author name. The Report lists every record whose author field matches the name as typed; it does not decide which of them are yours, and it does not cover other spellings or pen names, which are separate searches.
• Accuracy and affiliation. Matching is automated and not error-free; the Report will miss some records and include some that do not belong to you. PayAuthors is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the U.S. Copyright Office.
• More detail. The Methodology page describes the sources, checksums and matching methods in more detail; these terms govern.
• Data currency. The latest LibGen snapshot is dated June 3, 2025, the latest Z-Library catalog January 2025, and the registration data runs through December 2025 (as published by the Copyright Office in January 2026). Works added to any source afterwards are not included. Each Report states the dataset version and the SHA-256 checksums of the source files it was built from.

6. Not legal advice

PayAuthors is a research and analytics service, not a law firm. The Report and this site are information, not legal advice, and using them does not create an attorney–client relationship. Whether any listing, file or registration matters for a claim, settlement, registration or licensing decision is a question for your own lawyer.

7. Intellectual property and reuse

Your Report: a license. Each Report is licensed to you, not sold. When you buy a Report we grant you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive license to use, copy and share it, for your own works and the matters you are involved in (or, if you are a lawyer, for the client and matter you bought it for), for the uses below. The people you retain may use it on your behalf. Your own counsel, and the experts, consultants, investigators, literary agents and other agents you or your counsel retain, may use, copy and file the Report for you, for the works and matter it was bought for, without buying their own. Uses:

• Legal proceedings: litigation, arbitration, mediation, settlement talks, class and claims administration, opting out of or objecting to a settlement, and proceedings before courts, agencies and the U.S. Copyright Office, including filing it, quoting it and attaching it as an exhibit;
• Your advisers and others with an interest in the works: your lawyers, experts, literary agents, publishers, co-authors, co-owners, heirs and estate;
• Managing rights: registering, licensing, enforcing and documenting your own works or your client’s;
• Reporting and research: news reporting, commentary, research and teaching, quoting reasonable portions.

Credit when you share. When you share or publish a Report, or part of it, outside a legal proceeding, keep this credit: “Source: PayAuthors.com report [Report ID], prepared [date].” A filing in a legal proceeding needs only the citation its rules require. If you excerpt, re-sort or change the data, say so, and don’t present an altered Report as ours.

Sharing does not pass on the license. A Report is licensed for the works and the matter it was bought for. Anyone else, including another author, a law firm acting for a different client, or a party in a different matter, needs their own Report or a firm license before using it in a legal proceeding, for a client, or for any other purpose this section lists. Your own counsel and the experts and agents you retain are not “anyone else”: they act under your license, as set out above. Courts, tribunals, opposing parties, claims administrators and the U.S. Copyright Office may receive, read and keep a Report filed or served in a proceeding. Receiving or finding a copy is not a license.

What the license does not cover. You may not resell a Report, use it for other clients or matters, offer it as part of a paid product or service, or combine Reports into a database or dataset for others, without our written permission. Law firms and organizations that need wider rights can ask for a firm license. A Report a firm orders under a written engagement is licensed under that engagement.

Notices stay on. Don’t remove, alter or hide the copyright notice, report ID, license line or work-product legend on a Report or in its files, or distribute a copy from which they have been removed. The copyright notice, report ID and license line identify the Report, its owner and its terms of use, and may be copyright management information under 17 U.S.C. § 1202.

Uses beyond the license. If you use a Report, or let someone else use it, beyond this license (for example, for another client or matter), you owe, for each additional client or matter, the price of a new Report of the same edition as listed on our site on the date of that use (today US $95 for the Registration Details report, or US $35 for a Journal Article Registration Report). This is the price of the use made, not a penalty, and it does not limit any other remedy the law gives either of us.

Who owns what. The text, selection, arrangement and presentation of each Report, and our datasets, methods and software, are ours. The underlying public facts and records belong to no one or to their sources, and we claim no rights in them. If you are the author or rights holder of a work listed in a Report, nothing here affects your rights in that work.

Our content. The text, charts, figures, tables, timelines, page design and software of payauthors.com are © 2026 PayAuthors.com. All rights reserved, except as this section allows.

Sharing charts, figures and tables. You may share, post or embed an unaltered copy of any chart, figure or table from this site, including with the site’s own export and embed tools, as long as you keep the credit (“© PayAuthors.com”) and link to the page it came from. You may quote short passages of our text with the same credit and link. Do not alter a figure or present it as your own.

No bulk copying. You may not copy, scrape, mirror or republish the site’s data, search results or reports in bulk, use them to build a competing database or service, or use the site’s content to train or fine-tune machine-learning models, without our written permission. Write to support@payauthors.com to ask.

News. Headlines and summaries on our news page are our own and may be shared under the same terms. Linked documents belong to their authors; court filings are public records.

What this does not limit. Nothing in this section limits uses the law allows without permission, such as fair use, or your rights in your own works or in the public records we cite. Your use of a Report you bought is covered by “Your Report: a license,” above.

8. Warranties and liability

We take care to build the datasets faithfully and each Report documents its sources, but the data comes from third parties and contains errors, gaps and inconsistencies that we cannot correct. The service and the Report are provided "as is" and "as available," without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including accuracy, completeness, merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. To the fullest extent the law allows, our total liability for any claim arising from the service or a Report is limited to the amount you paid for that Report, and we are not liable for indirect, consequential or special losses. Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited by law.

You decide how to use a Report, including whether and when to bring, amend or settle a claim. If you use a Report or the site in breach of these terms, you are responsible for the losses that causes us, to the extent the law allows.

9. Privacy

Our privacy policy explains what we collect (the names you search, your order and e-mail, and basic server logs) and how long we keep it. If we receive a subpoena or other legal demand for records about you, we tell you first unless the law or a court order forbids it, and we produce only what the law requires. Reports a law firm orders under a written engagement with us are handled under that engagement, which controls where it differs from these terms.

10. Changes, termination, law

We may change these terms or the service; the version shown at checkout applies to that purchase. We may refuse or cancel orders we reasonably believe are abusive or fraudulent, refunding any payment taken.

Governing law. These terms, and any dispute about the service or a Report, are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, U.S.A., without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and by U.S. federal law where it applies.

Where disputes go. Any dispute will be brought only in the state courts located in Ellis County, Texas, or the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division (which covers Ellis County), and you and we consent to their personal jurisdiction and venue, unless applicable consumer law gives you the right to sue where you live.

Attorneys’ fees. In any lawsuit or other proceeding arising from these terms, a Report, a license, or the site, including one to enforce our copyright or the license, the prevailing party recovers its reasonable attorneys’ fees, expert fees and costs from the other party, in addition to any other relief, to the extent the law allows. This adds to, and does not limit, fees available under statute, such as 17 U.S.C. § 505 or Chapter 38 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code.

Court orders. Copying or using a Report, our data or the site beyond these terms may cause harm that money cannot fully repair, so we may ask a court for an injunction or other equitable relief, in addition to any other remedy.

Time to bring a claim. To the extent the law allows, a claim about the service or a Report must be brought within two years after it arises.

General. These terms, with our privacy and refund policies, are the whole agreement between us about the service; a separate written engagement controls where it differs. If a court finds part of these terms unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. Not enforcing a term is not a waiver of it. You may not transfer your rights under these terms; we may transfer ours to a successor in our business. We are not responsible for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control. We may send notices to the e-mail address you gave us or post them on the site; you can send notices to support@payauthors.com. Sections 4 to 10 survive the end of your use of the service.

11. Contact

PayAuthors · support@payauthors.com