Word.ws English Dictionary

shadow library

shadow library noun: an unlawful online book distributor that hosts free copies as PDFs, EPUBs, and the like for download.

Noun

shadow library (plural shadow libraries)

  1. (Internet) An unlawful online book distributor that hosts free copies as PDFs, EPUBs, and the like for download.
    • Judge Alsup ruled that this approach was fair use under the law. But he also found the company’s previous approach — downloading and storing books from shadow libraries like Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror — was illegal.2025 September 5, Cade Metz, “Anthropic Agrees to Pay $1.5 Billion to Settle Lawsuit With Book Authors”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 05 Sep 2025

Synonyms of shadow library

Forms of shadow library

pluralshadow libraries

Questions about shadow library

What does shadow library mean?
Shadow library means an unlawful online book distributor that hosts free copies as PDFs, EPUBs, and the like for download.
What part of speech is shadow library?
Shadow library is a noun.
What is the plural of shadow library?
The plural of shadow library is shadow libraries.

Words near shadow library in the dictionary

  1. Shadow Hills
  2. shadow histories
  3. shadow history
  4. shadow IT
  5. shadow libraries
  6. shadow library
  7. shadow map
  8. shadow mapping
  9. shadow maps
  10. shadow mask
  11. shadow masks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shadow library (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “shadow library.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shadow_library. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.