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.

In her order, McMahon sided with textbook publishers who accused Libgen of willful copyright infringement after Libgen completely ignored their complaint.

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.

      • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 month ago

        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.

      • Soggy@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 month ago

        And while we’re at it, get fucked Pearson and other scummy textbook publishers!

    • linearchaos@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      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.

    • Bonifratz@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      Libgen and scihub have done more for science than any of those shitty journal publishers.

      • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 month ago

        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.

        • antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 month ago

          Hell, a lot of the time I just go directly to Sci-Hub / Anna’s Archive because it’s literally faster than searching for my university and logging in.

  • RoidingOldMan@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 month ago

    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.

    • GCanuck@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 month ago

      Sure. But the folks who put the knowledge in a digestible format should be rewarded for their efforts.

      • BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 month ago

        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.

      • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 month ago

        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.

        • buzz86us@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          1 month ago

          Only if it is like $20 a month and encompasses all of your textbooks, but that will never happen

          • GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            1 month ago

            I don’t think you grasped the danger in a subscription based publishing model.

            you don’t get to read the book unless you pay the monthly fee. you stop paying, you stop reading.

            you don’t lend the book, you don’t borrow the book, you don’t copy the book…because there is no book.

            so how do the disenfranchised or poor gain access to knowledge outside their means? today, there are libraries. what happens if all those physical books are replaced with digital? worse yet, what happens when publishers con libraries with digital media? (you can’t fool the librarians, but any dumbass politician will eat a shit pie for optics).

            point is, there is permanence in physical media that makes ownership crystal clear. our society is not ready for a digital era, and if we prematurely enter it without appropriate laws and guidance in place, we will only be encouraging a plutocracy to form, one of which we can already clearly see forming today.

            • buzz86us@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              1 month ago

              Except literally nobody keeps their old textbooks they are by nature disposable, and not printing them is a massive win for the environment.

      • skulkingaround@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 month ago

        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.

      • Zement@feddit.nl
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        1 month ago

        Publishers don’t do this fyi… they only rake in money and give nothing on the authors. They are the real pirates here.