3 Count: Napster? Really?

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1: Anna’s Archive Loses .Org Domain After Surprise Suspension

First off today, Ernesto Van der Sar at Torrentfreak writes that Anna’s Archive, the search engine for “shadow libraries,” remains online despite its .org domain being suspended.

The site has been available for just over three years. It offers a simple search tool to access shadow libraries, which are libraries of copyright-infringing books, journals and other documents. For most of its life, it has been operating from a .org domain, with the TLDs operator generally being seen as reluctant to suspend domains.

Anna’s Archive was recently in the spotlight following a hack of Spotify, that has seen 300 TB of data being taken. Anna’s Archive has been slowly releasing the data to the public via its site. However, it’s unlikely this particular hack had anything to do with the domain suspension. In the meantime, the site remains operational on backup domains.

2: New Judge to Preside Over Anthropic Copyright Suit

Next up today, Publishers Weekly reports that the copyright infringement lawsuit against the AI company Anthropic will be overseen by a different judge as the previous judge retired at the end of the year.

Anthropic was sued by a collection of authors alleging that the AI company committed widespread copyright infringement in training their various models. The previous judge in the case, Judge William Alsup, ruled that the training was protected under fair use but then ruled that the use of pirated books was infringing. This resulted in a $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and a group of authors.

Judge Alsup retired at the end of 2025, prompting Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín to take over the case. She had previously presided over a similar case involving OpenAI, which she then combined with other cases and transferred from California to New York.

3: Napster Abruptly Pivots to AI As Its Streaming Service Goes Down

Finally today, Caleb Catlin at Vice reports that the streaming service Napster has abruptly closed its doors, pivoting toward AI.

Napster began life in the late 1990s as a one of the first peer to peer file sharing networks. It was shuttered in the early 2000s, but found a new life as a legitimate streaming service akin to Spotify or Apple Music.

However, the company has struggled to compete in a crowded market and was sold last year to Infinite Reality, an AI company. The company has now shuttered its streaming service and, according to interviews, is looking to “shake up” the market again with AI.

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