Can Anna's Archive claim to be a non-profit when it's effectively an illegal enterprise with unknown controllers?

They are even offering decent bounties: https://software.annas-archive.li/AnnaArchivist/annas-archiv...

Whoever is running it must be doing really well for themselves laundering all that crypto.

Also interestingly they don't offer a tor onion service, while the admin is most certainly technically competent to administer one given that he no doubt uses tor to insulate himself from his enterprise and launder crypto. What is the reasoning for that?

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teraflop 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Your comment seems like a non sequitur to me. Whether something is a "non-profit" has nothing to do with whether it receives or spends money. (See, e.g. the American Red Cross's ~$4B/yr budget.) It's about what it does with the money it has.

Obviously, since Anna's Archive is breaking the law, it can't conform itself to the normal legal/regulatory system that governs non-profit organizations. It can certainly still claim to be acting in the spirit of a non-profit, and it's up to you to decide whether you trust that claim. Nobody's forcing you to give them money.

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cakealert 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

The connotation of a non-profit is that it's being audited. It would be extremely silly to suggest otherwise.

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teraflop 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

It may have that connotation to you, but in general (at least in the US) non-profit organizations are not required to have independent audits. Typically, that requirement only happens if they receive a certain amount of government funding. An organization may choose to undergo audits in order to make people feel better about donating to it.

I really, really don't think that anybody is being fooled or misled into thinking that Anna's Archive is a "legitimate" audited organization when they describe themselves as a non-profit.

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addaon 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> The connotation of a non-profit is that it's being audited.

This is very geography-specific. In the US, 501(c)(3)s (what most people think of when they say "non-profit" where I am) have no general requirement for audits. There's also plenty of non-profit-by-some-definition organizations that never file a Form 1023, giving up some benefits of the 501(c)(3) regulations but in exchange being even less regulated.

	▲	Projectiboga 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		The entities are regulated at the state level in the usa, with the responsibility to comply with both state and federal tax authorities.

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badlibrarian 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Audits have nothing to do with it; all entities are subject to audit.

The primary difference between a non-profit and a for-profit is that a non-profit does not distribute profit to shareholders, including the founders.

	▲	cakealert 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Audit or threat of audit is the mechanism of enforcement and that is all that ever matters.

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gowld 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Is Cosa Nostra a non-profit? The question doesn't make sense. It's a category error.

A non-profit is a corporate legal structure. An unregistered organization could be a cabal, a gang, a syndicate, a fellowship, a religion, a movement, a private club, or something else.

	▲	nine_k 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		The intent is still important. While from a legal point of view a terrorist cell cannot be registered as a non-profit, it typically spends whatever funds it can secure to further its political goals, not on increasing the wealth of its owners or participants. A typical criminal band though is a for-profit entity.

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pdabbadabba 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

At least in the US, claiming that you are a nonprofit implies that contributions are tax deductible. Claiming that you are a nonprofit when contributions are not tax deductible might be considered fraudulent.

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anigbrowl 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Not true. There are different classes of nonprofit and they are not all tax deductible. Some nonprofits opt to forgo pursuing that status because it involves a lot of extra administration/filing requirements.

	▲	pdabbadabba 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		You're responding to a different point than the one I made. It's true that being a "nonprofit" doesn't logically entail that donations will be tax decudtible. But it still implies it to potential donors. The former is a matter of logic, the latter is a matter of psychology. Both are relevant. Yes, there are multiple classes of nonprofit, not all of which are tax deductible. But it is also true that holding yourself out to the public as a "nonprofit" has the potential to mislead because it may imply to potential donors that contributions would be tax deductible. That is why responsible (or at least well advised) nonprofits disclose which they are, because claiming you're a "nonprofit" in marketing materials, without further explanation, can mislead potential donors.

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jrflowers 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

They are already very much in breach of US law, which they have always been clear about. That aside, they don’t claim that contributions to them are tax deductible.

I would love to see someone try to explain to the IRS why all those purchases of Amazon gift cards and Monero for the transparently illegal organization should be deductible though

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SimianSci 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Given the amount of hosting and storage needed to sustain this project. Nobody is getting rich off of donations. Not to mention the lifestyle tradeoffs that innevitably come with international fugitive status do not lend themselves to a very comfortable life.

The usage of crypto is entirely one of necessity, as controling information and knowledge is something powerful people have clear stakes in. Many countries weild their financial systems to hold or acquire power. Information and Knowledge is one form of such power.

Everything points to the Anna's Archive team being passionate ideologues as opposed to some criminal enterprise focused on profit motives.

	▲	cakealert 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Not to mention the lifestyle tradeoffs that innevitably come with international fugitive status do not lend themselves to a very comfortable life. Anonymous international fugitive? > Nobody is getting rich off of donations. How can anyone aside from the beneficiary know that? The extent to which the controller can get rich off this enterprise depends entirely on the unknown quantity of donated funds (and deals with AI companies) and his skill at laundering crypto (which darknet marketplace controllers doing far more illegal stuff can do).
	▲	iLoveOncall 3 days ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		> Given the amount of hosting and storage needed to sustain this project. Nobody is getting rich off of donations. They're getting donations as much as megaupload was getting donations for premium accounts... People pay for higher bandwidth and no wait time, not to support the "cause". It's a farce to qualify this of donations. And obviously people do get rich off of it, as you can see from the slew of file hosting services.
	▲	throwaway29246 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		> Nobody is getting rich off of donations. I'll believe that when they publish financial statements. > Everything points to the Anna's Archive team being passionate ideologues as opposed to some criminal enterprise focused on profit motives. "Passionate ideologues" who make you pay if you want to download anything at speeds greater than 10KB/s, how nice of them. I would rather just support the author, thank you. I generally support piracy, but these piracy-as-a-business vultures who've been showing up in the shadow library scene need to go.

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southernplaces7 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

illegal doesn't at all have to mean immoral or particularly wrong either. Laws are complex constructions, often created for decidedly hypocritical reasons of benefitting some at the expense of others.

Thus, Who gives a shit if they're taking money from those who voluntarily subscribe. They still offer an absolutely incredible free service to who knows how many people who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford so much access to so much free information.

Given the behavior of the pro-copyright business interests and legal bodies of the world, and the outright hypocrisy of openly creating one set of rules on content piracy for certain corporations while applying another, harsher rule system for those who aren't so nicely connected, smug moralizing about something like Annas Archive has little grounding.

And aside from picking random crap out of your ass for smearing arbitrarily, what shred of evidence do you have of anyone there laundering crypto, and how?

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cakealert 3 days ago | parent [-]

> what shred of evidence do you have of anyone there laundering crypto, and how

The controller's freedom. If they didn't launder it they wouldn't be free.

> They still offer an absolutely incredible free service

Actually their free downloads aren't particularly good when compared to some of the other online services that 'leech' from them.

And their torrent strategy could be altruistic but it could also be self interested. By spreading storage costs around and attracting more contributions. And providing insurance to hardrive seizures.

What mainly interests me is how much money they are actually making, I suspect it's very profitable.

	▲	southernplaces7 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		>What mainly interests me is how much money they are actually making, I suspect it's very profitable. Well, it's about calculating their site support, storage, server and bandwidth costs. What might those be? Aside from these, I've seen them claim they use volunteers for much of their site support and certainly don't pay, or need to pay, anything for marketing since the word of mouth (partly through notoriety and partly through uniquness coupled with extreme usefulness) is more than enough to keep them famous.

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fwip 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> he

Is there any particular reason you suspect Anna's Archive to be run by a man?