Pirate library must pay publishers $30M, but no one knows who runs it

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 456 points – Pirate library must pay publishers $30M, but no one knows who runs it
arstechnica.com

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.

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Libgen helped me get my undergrad

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

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.

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.

Lmfao get fucked, US copyright system.

And get fucked, Digital Millennium Copyright Act!

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

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.

Sometimes there's a positive story that just makes your day. I bet those lawyers were expensive!

can’t libgen get around this by just saying they’re training an AI model?

And that it was curated by an AI model, so there's no human to blame!

Knowledge should be free

And you can have your freedom, for only the low low cost of 1200 dollars per freedom, per year.

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

Yep. Not the folks who create textbooks they force their students to buy for ludicrous prices so they can afford their fancy boat.

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

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.

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

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.

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

you used literally incorrectly. I kept my books from college. they sit on my shelves with all the books I've collected. why? because peer reviewed reference material is becoming increasingly more difficult to find on the Internet. it may be out of date in some cases, but it does give you a path to find exactly what you're looking for.

so what if you get rid of your textbooks? that's the whole point. what happens to your textbook after you have discarded it?

someone else picks it up.

I can hear the whine now, "what if I throw it in the trash?" maybe don't? maybe donate the book to your local library and they can give it to someone who needs it. maybe leave it on a bench on campus with a "free" post-it stuck on it? but even if you throw it in the trash, your garbage goes overseas where someone else might pick it up. the potential reuse of a physical book and the impact to our world is far greater than any environmental impacts. it's not toxic waste, it's a fucking book.

your argument that you're "saving the environment" is just preposterous. it has the same energy as the fools who think using paper straws over plastic is making any dent in environmental impacts. news flash, it makes negligible difference in plastic pollution while the oil and plastic companies continue to do more harm to the environment than any subset of humanity ever has based entirely on their manufacturing processes alone.

the only true crime are the publishers that print books without bindings. but those really can't be called books then, can they? don't like it? stage a protest, since you seem so passionate about saving the environment.

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

Good.

I hope this causes libgen to create a thousand more mirrors.

Man I wonder how they set it up to where they don't know who runs it

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.

Pirates: “Arr, hehe, yeah, we’ll send this right up the yardarm for ye.”

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.

You served them. Just send the judgement there idiots. Lolololol