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French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen

torrentfreak.com

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Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen

#241

Post by LoSboccacc »

indigochill wrote: post #225
neuronic wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what Merkel meant with "Neuland"(engl. uncharted territory) in 2013. In Germany she is heavily mocked for not understanding the Internet. Of course, it's the bright populace of high class forums such as Facebook and r/de who know better than the Physicist Chancellor of a G7 nation... In reality, she meant it is legal Neuland. That authorities and courts had little established ways of enforcing laws online, th…

Isn't this what the "dark web" is for? True, some sites have been taken down but as I understand that was more due to poor opsec than a flaw with the technology itself. I for one have no faith in educating the government as long as companies with multi-million-dollar lobbying budgets are free to sway politicians to legislate in their favor. Happy to be convinced otherwise, though.

not really. as a citizen of somewhere you'll always be subject to laws. dark web could help people evade the law a little longer but won't make it legal, as such law abiding citizen will not want to have themselves associated with it for the fear of repercussions down the road.

the only long term solution is to change the laws, not to work around them, but we don't have the economic power to balance the lobbies anymore.

Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen

#242

Post by whatthewhatwhat »

dTal wrote: post #238
yipbub wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give me an example?

Sure. Mooi were formed in 1999, split in 2006, made a bunch of great music in between, and all that remains is this one song on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF5cP8S0zOk The masters still exist, I'm told, but that's no good to anyone - they won't be re-released because it would require too much intellectual property wrangling and nobody cares enough to bother, and sooner or later that hard drive will die a…

Wow, that was a really pretty song. Thanks for sharing it.

Someday humanity will look back on this as a dark, barbaric age, thinking that ideas and sounds can be owned.

Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen

#243

Post by arghwhat »

leereeves wrote: post #237
99052882514569 wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is responsible for what? I support efforts to use open-access journals whenever possible and putting these ungodly abominations out of business. But that's up to researchers and funding agencies, not up to "the Pirate Bay of science" or any other site that breaks the law. And while I don't think it's immoral or anything to use it, I do think it's somewhat shrill and disingenuous to act like its blockage is some kind…

Let's be clear who's being "pirated" from. Elsevier and Springer don't pay for the research, or for the rights to the paper, or even the peer review. The only compensation they're giving anyone is "exposure". Given how little that is worth these days, the validity of the copyright assignments they hold are questionable at best.

I believe what was being referred to is the legal standpoint.

The paid journals are an absurdity, but there is only one right course of action: Not using them. Submit no content, pay no subscriptions. Let them whither and die. With more and more universities joining in on open access, this should become easier and easier.

However, they still legally hold the rights to what they have, and thus releasing their content in public is still illegal. You'd have to get the original authors to legally release it elsewhere, which they might not even have the rights to.

Killing them by stealing the content which they legally yet immorally sell and have the rights to is neither just nor impressive, and gives them a chance to cry "Foul!". Do not give them that chance.

Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen

#244

Post by wiggler00m »

Scientists etc are probably smart enough to find ways around this (or already have access). For example, there was a Twitter convention to request journal articles, and researchers with free access would retrieve them and send them via email as PDFs. Of course, I am not suggesting you do this if it contravenes the law.

On a brighter note: cosmic rays are coming at you; and Elsevier and Springer are making bank.

Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen

#245

Post by LoSboccacc »

Algent wrote: post #88
adrianN wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a court orders it, what are they going to do? Do you think Google would give up the EU market over Scihub?

They would definitely obey yes, they have offices in Paris. In France they regularly have to filter some results too since companies don't hesitate to sue for libel against negative results on first page.

yeah people keep touting "internet routes around censorship" and other platitudes with no grounding in reality, meanwhile European are already under illiberal regimes where the information if thoroughly controlled by the wealthy and the powerful.

we are literally at the point where European citizens need to engage in doublespeak on certain topics for the fear of harassment from people abusing the legal system, and it's getting words faster by the day

Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen

#246

Post by xorand »

99052882514569 wrote: post #231
xorand wrote: post #215

This was demanded by Elsevier and Springer, as the copy of the order shows https://torrentfreak.com/images/scihuborder.pdf . Every researcher who still is an editor of one of their journals is responsible for this. Any academic manager who supports these journals, either by buying them or by counting impact factor points, is responsible of this. People should know that all of these people who support this are paid fr…

Is responsible for what? I support efforts to use open-access journals whenever possible and putting these ungodly abominations out of business. But that's up to researchers and funding agencies, not up to "the Pirate Bay of science" or any other site that breaks the law. And while I don't think it's immoral or anything to use it, I do think it's somewhat shrill and disingenuous to act like its blockage is some kind…

They are responsible for the effects of their choices. Researchers who are editors of Elsevier and Springer journals are responsible for the locking of public funded research. The editors bring public money to publishers pockets. The academic managers are even more responsible. They pay these publishers for nothing, presently, because either the old articles are in their libraries, or all of the newer articles are already available from a variety of sources, like arXiv or researchers themselves. Academic managers also decide on the researchers carriers and research funds access, based on impact factor points, which implicitly is helpful for these publishers. The world is changing, but slowly, see for example the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment http://www.ascb.org/dora/ Editors and managers live in a bureaucratic fantasy, in total disregard of researchers needs. This can be deduced from the use patterns of sites which are legal everywhere, like arXiv.org, or for sites which are not legal everywhere, like SciHub or LibGen. These are not used because researchers are too poor to pay the publishers, although I have yet to find one researcher who is willing to pay to read a research article from his personal pocket. These sites are used because they satisfy a need: fast, full access to research.

Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen

#247

Post by psychoslave »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #197
simias wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares about what that guy wanted or didn't want. The question is whether we should let people distribute his manifesto for the sake of freedom of expression or if we consider it to be dangerous and worthy of a ban. The opinion of the guy who committed this heinous crime is frankly irrelevant IMO. If I was to commit some atrocities tomorrow and write a pamphlet outlining my motive and calling for others to do the…

> The question is whether we should let people distribute his manifesto for the sake of freedom of expression or if we consider it to be dangerous and worthy of a ban. Speaking as a us citizen, that is crazy talk. Why should the government be let to decide what is "too dangerous" for me to read? It seems incredible that first world democracies still engage in that kind of censorship.

As a French citizen, this is nothing new in principle: we already had law that forbid negationist material and so on. That makes nothing for social peace of course, it only brings more weight to the "see how they try to hide you the truth" bullshit.

But this seems to clearly intensify. We now have laws passed "to regulate things against Fake News during election period"[1], in a climate of already large distrust of population against politics.

It's really unclear how this plain censorship is not replaced with a mandatory warning, which would give the opportunity to let people judge by themselves (or at least decide to trust the authority that the material doesn't worth their attention).

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikim%C3%A9dia_France/Fausse...

Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen

#248

Post by amaccuish »

oarsinsync wrote: post #205
setquk wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spent years with 5 people on 12mbit ADSL2. I'd rather have that than virgin and blocking any day. I suffered Virgin for a couple of years and it was hell. Now I'm on ~64mbit VDSL with no blocking at all on Zen. We pull 500G+ a month through it. Costs £37.49 a month. They just rolled out 300mbit fibre as well so that's going in next month. Speed isn't everything for me. I can QoS those problems away pretty well.

> I spent years with 5 people on 12mbit ADSL2. I'd rather have that than virgin and blocking any day. Try doing that today with 5 people all trying to watch Netflix. That wasn't a thing back in 2002.

I've got virgin at uni right now and while the headline speeds are great, it's absolutely useless at peak times. Not worth it IMHO.

Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen

#249

Post by whatthewhatwhat »

simonh wrote: post #174
chii wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking materials is the incorrect way to deradicalize people. I would further argue that by blocking it, the material is made to seem more scarce, and even more desirable for those who would otherwise not have been interested if it hadn't been blocked! Outreach from social workers and societal safety net is the best way to prevent radicalization. I see legalization of drugs as an example.

I think there are many good reasons to block that video that have nothing to do with radicalisation. For a start this is footage of the deaths of dozens of people who, along with their families, have a right to privacy.

There is no such right. It was not a private death among family in a hospital. It was a public act of evil. You've no more right to censor it on behalf of some of the victims than you have to censor a car or plane crash, a chemical plant explosion, or a tsunami.

What happened was a crime not only against the direct victims, but against all of New Zealand and all of humanity. It affects all people, as it damages the social fabric everywhere. It's vitally important that all people can avail themselves of the knowledge of what happened so that all people can help to stop it from happening again.

By your logic, photos of Auschwitz and the Killing Fields and Tiananmen Square ought to be destroyed. No, we must face evil head-on, recognize it for what it is and how it works, so we may be prepared to stop it.

What you propose only aids the perpetrators by obscuring their evil deeds and minimizing the murders they committed. Shame on you.

Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen

#250

Post by enriquto »

arghwhat wrote: post #243
leereeves wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be clear who's being "pirated" from. Elsevier and Springer don't pay for the research, or for the rights to the paper, or even the peer review. The only compensation they're giving anyone is "exposure". Given how little that is worth these days, the validity of the copyright assignments they hold are questionable at best.

I believe what was being referred to is the legal standpoint. The paid journals are an absurdity, but there is only one right course of action: Not using them. Submit no content, pay no subscriptions. Let them whither and die. With more and more universities joining in on open access, this should become easier and easier. However, they still legally hold the rights to what they have, and thus releasing their content…

> gives them a chance to cry "Foul!". Do not give them that chance.

They can cry whatever they want. I want them to disappear in great pain!

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