Some Libgen links can’t be reached after broad takedown order.
On Thursday, some links to the notorious shadow library Library Genesis (Libgen) couldn't be reached after a US district court judge, Colleen McMahon, ordered what TorrentFreak called "one of the broadest anti-piracy injunctions" ever issued by a US court.
To compensate rightsholders, McMahon ordered Libgen to pay $30 million, but because nobody knows who runs the shadow library, it seems unlikely that publishers will be paid any time soon, if ever.
I cannot count the times that I have gone through the legitimate path to read a paper, by clicking "AcCeS tHiS pApEr ThRoUgH yOuR iNsTItUtIoN" and I log in through my university, faffing with 2FA, only to be told "nah, you don't have access". I just go straight to scihub nowadays.
Yes. I am Look Skee Wacker, and I ride the Digital Millennium Copyright Act Falcon. Sure it's kinda small and feathery but chewy and I love to ride it to new adventures! 😉
Is the dead falcon smell normal for falcons? Why doesn't it fly when we jump on it... repeatedly? Is all the red stuff supposed to be inside of it? How do we put it all inside? It's at lot. Well, it's not a lot, it's a falcon. I'm just referring to all the guts outside surrounding it.
I'd happily pay $20-40ish for a quality textbook. I have many times before. It's when they want to charge $300 and give almost nothing to the authors that I have a problem with. Extra scummy when they make a new edition that's just barely different enough you can't use it for class because the practice problems don't match or give you one time use online codes that render it worthless for resale.
With Universal Healthcare and a Universal Basic Income, no one would need to be "rewarded" for doing things that they find interesting, entertaining, or do simply for the sake of enriching society.
I would ask if you're fine with books becoming subscription based commodities.
I would hope your answer is no.
We both know you don't read past the headlines though, so your opinion on this matter is as limited as your understanding of the topic.
I agree, creators should be paid, but libraries should be a protected branch of society. one day when capitalism forces a subscription pattern to books and locks knowledge behind paywalls, those libraries will be the only salvation for the disenfranchised masses.
unless you have a product that needs to feed off someone else's labour to be somewhat useful, then you can use it for free legally without compensating anyonee
The index is distributed. The files are hosted in multiple places. Historically, some of the storage spots have been compromised web servers. There are copies in ipfs.
I get the feeling it's maintained by a collective. No idea how they coordinate content acquisition or update indexes. It's pretty well updated.
Only $30 million? For the amount of content and the convenience, Libgen seems to getting charged pennies on the dollar here. Imagine if the government could make a free online library of that quality for only $30 million, it would be a fantastic investment.