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French ISPs Ordered to Block Sci-Hub and LibGen

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

#201

Post by 0815test »

mateo1 wrote: post #117

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. 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.

OK, since it looks like these libraries are going down after all, can we systematically download the content in them that's verifiably in the public domain, and upload it to the Internet Archive so that it becomes legitimately available and findable? There's a lot of such stuff that gets entirely fraudulent copyright claims tacked on to it, or claims that might apply only to supplemental matter (especially prefaces) that can be stripped out of a (DRM-free!) PDF file. And if something was first published before the late 19th century, it's quite obviously PD even in "life+X" countries where it might be hard to find info about all the people who could've had a hand in it back then.

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

#202

Post by oytis »

atemerev wrote: post #67

Western countries are becoming increasingly like China and Russia. UK, Australia, Germany, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand... So far, only the US still holds some resemblance to “protecting the freedom of speech” — sure, copyright violators are pursued, but at least nobody is trying to censor the Internet... yet.

As a Russian (and not a really fond of Putin's regime one) living in Germany, I can tell you that Russia's copyright policy is nowhere as strict as one of Germany. A lot of copyrighted content can be found on Russian websites, and what's missing from there is on Chinese ones.

You still need VPN if you want to get to some content forbidden for political reasons, but for most people the ability to get a movie/album/book they want matters more.

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

#203

Post by swebs »

class4behavior wrote: post #152
mateo1 wrote: post #117

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. 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.

>(...) but more effective measures will follow if we don't change the political willingness to withhold knowledge from the masses. The EU just passed the directive for the new copyright package which further cements the status quo (the two often mentioned articles are just the worst of it), so don't expect any progress if people don't start to elect more progressive politicians. The projections for the EU election sh…

>In 2018, support [for the copyright directive] in the European Parliament was led by the European People's Party group and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, the parliament's two largest groups

>Opposition in the European Parliament is led by populist parties including Poland's ruling Law and Justice party, Italy's ruling Five Star Movement/Lega Nord coalition, and the UK Independence Party. Other opponents include a large number of smaller parties at either end of the political spectrum.[66][72] Notable among these is the Pirate Party Germany, whose sole MEP Julia Reda has been an outspoken opponent of the proposal.[73]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_...

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

#204

Post by atemerev »

oytis wrote: post #202
atemerev wrote: post #67

Western countries are becoming increasingly like China and Russia. UK, Australia, Germany, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand... So far, only the US still holds some resemblance to “protecting the freedom of speech” — sure, copyright violators are pursued, but at least nobody is trying to censor the Internet... yet.

As a Russian (and not a really fond of Putin's regime one) living in Germany, I can tell you that Russia's copyright policy is nowhere as strict as one of Germany. A lot of copyrighted content can be found on Russian websites, and what's missing from there is on Chinese ones. You still need VPN if you want to get to some content forbidden for political reasons, but for most people the ability to get a movie/album/boo…

I already explained — there is a difference between legal pursuits and state-sponsored censorship. Also in Russia you basically need VPNs for everything — LinkedIn, Telegram etc.

Here in Switzerland, obtaining copyrighted content for own use is basically decriminalized (its illegal distribution, however, is not).

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

#205

Post by oarsinsync »

setquk wrote: post #114
Aromasin wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the minor ISPs are almost 3-fold slower in most places, while being just as expensive. My options are between Virgin, which has speeds of up to 362mB fibre for £42/month, and the next best BT, which is 67mB for £39.99/ month. At uni, unless I wanted 30mB for a 7 person household, my only option was again Virgin. It's difficult not to be on a major ISP when the minor ISPs can't contest on speed and value…

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.

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

#206

Post by jordigh »

vanderZwan wrote: post #142
mateo1 wrote: post #117

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. 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…

Well, they weren't torrent sites in the late 90s and probably not the early 2000s either. The Bittorrent protocol wasn't released until July 2001 and it took a few years to get popular.

Back then, they were just servers you downloaded stuff from.

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

#207

Post by jimktrains2 »

codedokode wrote: post #198
jimktrains2 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yesterday those weird scientints gave to you the rights to their works. Yesterday there weren't any, let alone good, alternatives. Even today with good alternatives, the way publishing in "high impact" journals is tied to pay can make the issue not really have other options. Free access to knowledge is fairly foundational to science and something that's has been talked about for a while. This isn't a new problem. I…

But today, even with alternatives present, scientists still give away or sell their rights to the journals. The scientists are often paid be the government. So it is the government that creates this situation and makes "high impact" journals what they are. It is the government that doesn't mandate free access to the knowledge.

Yes, I covered that in my response. Alternatives exist, but can't be used in circumstances where your career may be on the line.

I agree, however, that receiving government funding should require open access publishing.

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

#208

Post by codedokode »

atemerev wrote: post #199
codedokode wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US doesn't need to block sites because many major IT companies are under their jurisdiction and they (their courts) can just order to remove the content or stop serving the domain name. For example, they seize casino's domain names and order the banks not to allow payment to them. What's wrong with online casinos? Should't people have the right to decide how to spend their money?

I am not saying that the US are perfect in every regard. I only admire their anti-censorship stance, which is increasingly rare. There are still many problems, e.g. with arbitrariness of law application, and the popularity of surveillance state. However, there is subtle, but important (at least to me) distinction between “this site violates the law — let’s pursuit its owners legally” and “this site violates the law —…

But US blocks casino sites for everyone when it seizes their domain names.

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

#209

Post by zrav »

vanderZwan wrote: post #142
mateo1 wrote: post #117

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. 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…

torrent.ru still is excellent for music, as long as you manage to register despite the cyrillic text.

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

#210

Post by neuronic »

strictfp wrote: post #69
ndnxhs wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its always DNS first and everyone says "lol, just change your DNS" and then they start doing real blocks. Optus in Australia did an IP level block of 4chan recently.

Yeah, everyone is so defiant that they don't realize that IP and VPN blocks are coming if we continue down this road.

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, that even heavily illegal acts were difficult to process and prosecute.

Now we are getting there. The law catches up with the Internet. If we want a free Sci-Hub and free content sharing, then it's the law that we have to adapt. Because governments already adapt their procedures - the online Wild West is over.

Kind of feels like "civilization" creeping into the Old West.

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