its definitely illegal but its pretty neat https://www.libgen.is/
Found a site that lets u view articles and books for free
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5
38 days later
Sooo no moral compass?
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@drlebronski
Have you noticed that the first option on the banner is translation to Russian?
Looks like this website is designed as a repository and Russian translator for science papers that would normally be behind a firewall.
No other languages are offered- just English to Russian.
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@oromagi
It's an Icelandic domain though.
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@RationalMadman
->@oromagiIt's an Icelandic domain though.
Yeah. You can't host a site like this on .ru because so much is formally blocked at the domain level. It would be hard to read even pretty general scientific papers from the US on .ru without violating Russian law.
Most domains either have agreements with the US about publishing US intellectual properties or are hostile to US interests. If you host a site like this on an EU or Western Hemisphere domain, international law is going to catch up with you pretty quick. Lots of countries like Iran and Pakistan would happily flout international law but are also heavily censored internally and not able to effectively combat US cybersecurity.
What you need is a domain where speech is relatively free, where relations with the US are good enough to keep US cybersecurity from open investigations and attacks but the country still stands up to the US in international court and where existing digital and copyright law is quite lenient or undefined. Lawsuits will probably eventually take a site like this down but it might enjoy years of open operation until the weight of law can be brought to bear. Iceland, Montenegro, and New Zealand are probably the most popular domains in this category, although New Zealand is cracking down and Montenegro is working to join the EU so Iceland is probably the most attractive domain right now.
I've been using a vast repository of pilfered Dungeons and Dragons literature from a .is site for the past couple of years and then one day in June it just shut down without explanation and hasn't returned. I think there's a lot of sites like this on .is right now which can hang around for a while until some interested party comes down hard or until Iceland gets it copyright law in compliance with EU standards (which seems pretty likely in the long run).