Book pirates pose as photographers on Zillow
Fake real estate profiles list SEO-stuffed book titles instead of names, linking to filesharing sites to download ebooks.
Pirated books are turning up on Zillow, the real estate listings site, the outlet reported. Book pirates are posing as real estate photographers, using the profile feature Zillow offers photographers on the platform.
Instead of a name, a profile page lists an SEO-style book title — one example cited was "pdf download The Names A Read with Jenna Pick by Florence Knapp" — with a book's cover image used as the user photo, according to the report. The profile links out to a filesharing site where the ebook can be downloaded.
The pages all trace to different accounts, and all of those accounts were created this year, the outlet reported. The outlet noted this follows successful lawsuits against shadow libraries Anna's Archive and WeLib.
Zillow is a real estate site. It has nothing to do with publishing, which is exactly why this works. Nobody polices a photographer's profile page for stolen fiction, and that's the whole trick: hide in plain sight, somewhere no rights holder is looking. The accounts were all created this year, which tells you this isn't a leftover problem — it's an active one.
From the Coral Wire edition of Sat, Nov 14 2026 · Coral Index 69/100 (Tailwinds building)