For anyone who might be tempted to fall for the guilt-tripping about authors, text books rarely generate any income for their authors and most would be happy to open source them (as many do nowadays). They're interested in getting useful materials out there (and the name recognition that comes from having their name on useful texts). They do not rely on book sales to make a living.

You should not feel guilty about pirating text books but you can help the authors out by asking your library to stock the text, borrowing it if your library has it (even if you've pirated a copy for keeps), and recommending it to others (with text that will show up on searches) if you found it useful.

The update is hilarious.

Update: Publishers' lawyer Matthew Oppenheim told Ars that Libgen is a "thieves' den" of illegal books, and "there is no question" that Libgen's conduct is "massively illegal." Oppenheim said that "really, the only question is why it's been allowed to exist this long." He also said that it's possible that US companies may not realize that they are aiding Libgen's infringement, but publishers hope that when they "are confronted" with the fact "that this library is massively illegal, that hopefully they will voluntarily do the right thing" and cut off Libgen.

Seethe harder. Libgen is the savior of modern education.

The US Textbook industry single-handedly justifies the existence of Library Genesis (if it requires justification)

Can't thank libgen enough. Libgen exists to serve the original purpose of the Internet.

I'll stop using libgen when an ebook is cheaper than a hard copy.

I’ll take this lawsuit as a recommendation. Hadn’t even heard of the site before now.

Libgen saved me so much money in college. They provide such a valuable service

The copyright industry contributes very little to actual authors, hoards knowledge and charges enourmously for access to works that were financed by public funds, and should have been in the public domain from the get go.

We need a serious reform of copyright law, which will not happen until we stop lobbyists from influencing legislators.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

But after briefly disappearing, Libgen popped back up and has been online ever since, operating in defiance of that order—as well as court orders "in several countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, and the United Kingdom," publishers' complaint filed yesterday said.

Those countries even tried ordering "Internet service providers to block access to Libgen Sites as a result of infringement actions," publishers said, all seemingly to no avail.

This includes tons of students whom publishers claimed are "bombarded with messages to use Libgen sites" on social media rather than paying full price for textbooks.

Instead of paying publishers to distribute books like a real library does, the complaint alleged, Libgen profits off pirated works by running advertisements alongside e-book downloads for things like online games and browser extensions.

Libgen staff, the publishers alleged, hide behind usernames like "librarian" or "bookwarrior" and rely "on proxy services that specifically conceal website operators’ identifying information."

Thanks in part to these US companies, Libgen operators can "rely on the anonymity of the Internet and their overseas locations to hide their names and addresses and frustrate enforcement efforts against them," publishers alleged.

The original article contains 873 words, the summary contains 188 words. Saved 78%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

🖤🏴🏴🏴

Added this on the post in !ubc@lemmy.ca, and it's a bit specific to our university, but it might help others too:

https://ubcwiki.ca/academics/classes/textbooks.html