How To Download From Library Genesis
Cris Luczak
I did download some articles from libgen and by then I didn't know it wasn't right to do so, well some people say that there's no problem but honestly I think it is and I'm scared for what this articles where used for without me knowing about it.
I downloaded articles. I started writing my protocol thesis with advisor/professor supervision, based on parts of these articles. Advisor then asked me to do a summary of some of them, I did it and then sent it to his mail. We then stopped working due to him "I'm very busy, lot of work at uni, COVID-19" (I then realize he was lying, he was indeed working on my topic preparing to show it as his own work) and I said "don't worry, I understand". For some time I kept studying on my own until I felt lost with no direction and it was during this time also that I knew that the articles and content from libgen is, in general, illegal to use. I didn't scare, I just thought that I had nothing on my protocol since it's based on libgen content. I just thought on commenting this to advisor next time I saw him (personally, didn't want to say this through mail) and ask permission or purchase if needed, the articles that I was going to use. About 3 months later (end of august) since the last message of advisor, he said "Sorry for speaking until now, I've been working on the topic, I've structured how your thesis would be, are you still interested on working?" I said "I understand, don't worry. How the structure of my thesis is (perhaps here was the time to say: stop working on it there's something I need to tell you, but I didn't, I didn't think things would go further whiout telling me previously)? Yes, although right now I'm taking a summer course" (course that started at beginning of august). A month passed and I never got a reply. A few days ago, I realized that advisor is going to give a talk (within days) about my thesis topic.
He plans to give a talk about topic "x applied on AB, BC, CD" and on his summary, he mentioned parts contained on my protocol that I proposed, i.e. my original ideas, and also he plans to use Y aswell, not sure if the same Y as mine, wouldn't surprise me if it's the same Y.
Why did he steal my work? Because it is new, this kind of works have been done in other parts of the world but not on ours. But there's a major problem that really worries me, as I said this -work on my protocol (which was never completed nor registered)- it's based of articles that I downloaded from libgen, fortunatelly only 5 of them are in the case of "need to purchase, free to reuse on thesis/dissertation but need to comply some terms", the rest of them, afaiu, are free to use, they are on ResearchGate and you can download them.
Notice that I am not the one publishing anything, I'm not giving a talk, I would never use work taken without permisson or withouth purchasing when authors are requiring this actions for their works. The thing that I did was to take part of some from these restricted articles for my protocol and a summary, and sent to advisor. And it's highly likely that these content is going to be used to give a talk and to publish a paper. Am I in trouble? Am I in legal troubles?
I really don't think you should worry about the fact that you downloaded articles from libgen or similar websites. Nobody is going to come arrest you because of that... I doubt anyone will know the articles were illegally downloaded and I highly doubt anyone will be enforcing copyright laws to the point where you will see any consequences. If you think it's wrong, then just don't do it in the future, but I am pretty sure that most academics get "illegal" articles from the internet or their peers every once in a while, cite them in their work, and don't think twice about it and most people will not even judge you for it.
To add to the potential consequences: The worst thing that will happen to you is your internet company might send you an email threatening to fine you or something. If you stop the illegal downloads, (or get a VPN/other ways of making your traffic anonymous), they will not pursue the issue any further. At least that has been my experience with pirating things in the past.
The first point is fairly simple. It may be illegal to download articles from libgen and the likes (depending on the jurisdiction). But using this content in other scientific papers and projects is perfectly fine as long as it is properly referenced.
As for the second point, you may want to talk with your supervisor as to how he thinks to share credit for the work. If you have indeed contributed to the research or project your contribution should be acknowledged. If a paper gets published with significant input from you but without you being mentioned could be a violation of ethics codes.
Besides everything that has already been said, the biggest problem is stealing someone's finished work without referring to the original author. However, you did not do this. The moral deviant here isn't you - and no legal consequences are going to will to you.
The open-access or on libgen books are more downloaded and cited than others behind the paywalls. A lot of studies are finding this (e.g. see -access-books-are-downloaded-cited-and-mentioned-more-than-non-oa-books). And considering that the scientists will do their jobs aiming large range of readers as well they are already paid for the development of their studies by private or public institutions, seems like ok if you read books from libgen and do the reference. Imagine that you could borrow the book from one friend or the library school.
Besides that, assuming you are not making any harm to nobody as well as helping to amplify the reach of those studies, in fact, you are helping people to access knowledge. (And knowledge must be free for all!!)
Nevertheless, if you not confident yet and have the conditions to reimburse, so you could just send the money directly to the author. Because, in the end, she/he receives a little part of the price!!! If you take into account that the big publishers are who retaining the money and not the authors, using libgen and sci-hub is a big favor for the authors.
It is especially true outside of renamed US and EU universities, where we don't have money to access knowledge and don't have a choice. Is very common to ask for the authors for their work if isn't present on the web for free.
Library Genesis (LibGen) is a shadow library project for file-sharing access to scholarly journal articles, academic and general-interest books, images, comics, audiobooks, and magazines. The site enables free access to content that is otherwise paywalled or not digitized elsewhere.[1] LibGen describes itself as a "links aggregator", providing a searchable database of items "collected from publicly available public Internet resources" as well as files uploaded "from users".[2]
LibGen provides access to copyrighted works, such as PDFs of content from Elsevier's ScienceDirect web-portal. Publishers like Elsevier have accused Library Genesis of internet piracy. Others assert that academic publishers unfairly benefit from government-funded research, written by researchers, many of whom are employed by public universities, and that LibGen is helping to disseminate research that should be freely available in the first place.[3]
Library Genesis has roots in the illegal underground samizdat culture in the Soviet Union.[4] In a society where access to printing was strictly controlled by heavy-handed censorship, dissident intellectuals hand copied and retyped manuscripts for secret circulation. This was legalized under Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s, and expanded very rapidly at a time of affordable desktop computers and scanners, and very small research budgets.
The volunteers moved into the Russian computer network ("RuNet") in the 1990s, which became awash with hundreds of thousands of uncoordinated contributions. Librarians became especially active, using borrowed access passwords to download copies of scientific and scholarly articles from Western Internet sources, then uploading them to RuNet.
In the early 21st century, the efforts became coordinated, and integrated into one massive system known as Library Genesis, or LibGen, around 2008.[5][6][7] It subsequently absorbed the contents of, and became the functional successor to, library.nu, which was shut down by legal action in 2012.[8] By 2014, its catalog was more than twice the size of library.nu with 1.2 million records.[6] As of 28 July 2019,[update] Library Genesis claims to have more than 2.4 million non-fiction books, 80 million science magazine articles, 2 million comics files, 2.2 million fiction books, and 0.4 million magazine issues.[9]
In 2020, the project was forked under an alternate domain, "libgen.fun", due to internal conflict within the project.[10][better source needed] As a result, databases are being maintained independently and content differs between libgen.fun and other LibGen domains.
In 2015, Library Genesis became involved in a legal case with Elsevier, which accused it of copyright infringement and granting free access to articles and books. In response, the admins accused Elsevier of gaining most of its profits from publicly funded research which should be freely available to all as they are paid for by taxpayers.[3]
In late October 2015, the District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered LibGen to shut down and to suspend use of the domain name (libgen.org),[11] but the site is accessible through alternate domains.[12][13]
LibGen is blocked by a number of ISPs in the United Kingdom,[15] but such DNS-based blocks are claimed to do little to deter access.[3] It is also blocked by ISPs in France,[16] Germany,[17] Greece,[18] Italy,[19] Belgium (which redirects to the Belgian Federal Police blockpage),[20] and Russia (in November 2018).[21][22] On March 23, 2024, the Dutch pirate site blocklist has been reported to now include Anna's Archive and Library Genesis, based on a request by BREIN, a local anti-piracy group.[23]
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