Telegram continues to tighten the fight against piracy, removing channels and bots that spread illegal content. Another blow came on the Z-Library shadow library-the main channel, as well as a popular bot for downloading books were not available due to copyright violations.
In addition to secure chats, Telegram is actively used for broadcast messages, news and notifications. However, attackers use a platform to spread illegal content. At the same time, Telegram claims that with the help of AI and machine learning, it quickly removes the materials that violate the messenger rules.
The situation changed after the arrest of the founder of Telegram Pavel Durov in France in 2024. Although the investigation did not concern piracy, the messenger accelerated the process of removing the violating content. The reaction time to complaints decreased from 24 hours to 20 minutes, and the rules introduced a clause on the transfer to special services of the IP addresses of suspects in crimes.
Z-Library felt such changes on itself. There were more than 500 thousand subscribers on the remote channel. Soon a new channel appeared, but also did not live for a long time – last week he was blocked for copyright violations.
In addition, the popular @1lib bot, which was used by tens of thousands of people, also disappeared. The bot allowed to search and download books bypassing official stores. Representatives of Z-Library reported that the blocking was caused by a complaint of one of the largest publishers. However, administrators note that so far there are many personal bots that continue to work.
Publishers have long been waging a war with shadow libraries, achieving the blocking of their domains and removing links from search engines. Closing channels on Telegram is another step in this confrontation. However, the final victory is not yet visible: Z -Library continues to find roundabouts, and its users are new access methods.
Meanwhile, the criminal prosecution of the alleged organizers of Z-Library continues in the United States. In 2022, two administrators were arrested in Argentina, and a year ago the court approved their extradition to the States. However, according to the latest data, the accused fled from house arrest, and since the end of 2023 there is no information about their location.