Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given that those were torrent sites, they weren’t hosting the content. The individuals seeding the content still likely have copies of it. They just have no easy, obvious place to share it where they won’t get in trouble for doing so... for now. But if such a technology shows up later, the (already ripped and preserved) content might just show back up along with it.
The /r/datahoarder subreddit is full of people like this. I'm happy they exist, if nothing else so at least there may be a digital record of our civilization if it's destroyed.
French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen
341–350 of 386 posts
Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen
#342Those 2 libraries are the closest thing to the modern internet equivalent of the "Library of Alexandria". I hope they don't manage to burn in down. Yes, for now governments only caught up to DNS level blocking, but more effective measures will follow if we don't change the political willingness to withhold knowledge from the masses.
> Those 2 libraries are the closest thing to the modern internet equivalent of the "Library of Alexandria". I hope they don't manage to burn in down. This just reminds of how in the late nineties and early 2000s we used to have torrent sites for music enthusiasts with an archive of all the different versions, editions, bootlegs, all painstakingly added and catalogued, representing tens if not hundreds of man-hours wo…
Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you give me an example?
What.cd hosted, among other things, three unpublished Salinger stories. They were swiftly taken down by the site hosts over demands from his estate, but narrowly made it onto BitTorrent and other sites, and are still available today. Meanwhile, a lot of unique live-concert recordings (often made with the band's permission, unlike the Salinger tapes) vanished with the demise of What.CD. Presumably some people still ha…
Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen
#344$ nslookup http://sci-hub.tw/
Server: 127.0.0.53
Address: 127.0.0.53#53
Non-authoritative answer:
Name: http://sci-hub.tw/
Address: 36.37.242.94
It is trivial for the user to appoint another DNS server, or even to add the site to his /etc/hosts file manually, if they try to block at that level. It is also trivial to tunnel over another ip address to reach the one wanted. How is "blocking" supposed to work?
In the court document, they asked for an injunction against a list of domain names. Therefore, I assume the "block" will be limited to blocking them at the DNS level.
"Toutes mesures propres à empêcher l'accès" ("All appropriate measures to prevent access"), means everything and nothing, especially, when it is most likely impossible to do. What they really want is to block particular content. In my opinion, it is not possible for an ISP to support that.
Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen
#345Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can typically get any paper your university library has a subscription to via the libraries online portal or if you are in the university network already at the undergraduate and masters level. If some journal is not available at the library you can request an interlibrary „loan“ which just means that someone at another library will copy the article and send it to you, typically for free.
I have been registered as a student in 5 French universities and I can tell you that even if I can get "any" paper if I can enter a library (which is a joke in itself), sci-hub is 10 times more convient than the bureaucracy involved. The only time I requested a book from the stock, the librarian didn't even give it to me pretexting it was lost... probably because did like me as I had an unopened sandwich in hand.
- Search for an article on PubMed in the university library portal
- Get a list of results
- Download the article as pdf from the publishers website
Additionally many journals are accessible just by navigating to the publishers website (science, nature, physics journals, ieee journals) depending on which university vpn you are logged into. This covers most use cases, I am sorry to hear it’s not the same in France.
Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
We switched service providers 3 times during that year. We started with a 30mbit connection through PlusNet, then 60 with EE, then 300 Virgin. The only one that was usable was Virgin Media. I wish that wasn't that case, but it simply was. Internet was a contentious topic in our house, but having 7 people either playing games, watching HD movies, or streaming simultaneously knocked most ISPs down swiftly.
plusnet and EE are turds. Total turds. The worst of all of them to be honest apart from possibly Talk Talk.
Apart from their mobile offering - plenty of bad things to say about that!
Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Those 2 libraries are the closest thing to the modern internet equivalent of the "Library of Alexandria". I hope they don't manage to burn in down. This just reminds of how in the late nineties and early 2000s we used to have torrent sites for music enthusiasts with an archive of all the different versions, editions, bootlegs, all painstakingly added and catalogued, representing tens if not hundreds of man-hours wo…
>And then it all was destroyed. We still have communities like that, but you need the right connections to get in.
Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
A law has no inherent legitimacy simply from being a law. It must either reflect a social more or uphold public safety or, at the very least, be useful as a rule. Should people be paid for the work they do? Yes. Should people be paid for the work of others? Maybe, if they contributed in some way. Should we pay an academic journal which charges fees for people to submit to them? No, that's absurd.
I think OP's point is that breaking any law undermines the principle of rule of law in general.
Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know about other countries, but in Spain the left wing is the best friend of the copyright lobby.
Are they "left-wing" or socially left neoliberals. There is a difference between "left-wing" as in economic AND social leftism vs the sort of neoliberal, "Third Way" politics, which equal socially left-wing, but economically center-right. Most of the "social democratic" parties in Europe are that way these days. They don't really champion economic populism, wealth redistribution etc.
And IMO there are no (neo)liberals in Spain, if you listen to facts instead of words.
Every party currently in Parliament is big-state. PP raised taxes over Zapatero levels and public expenses even more, systematically breaking expense limits every single year they were in government.
Re: French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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!
Then don't give them the legal weaponry to fight back.