Whenever Library Genesis (Libgen) or Sci-Hub hit the headlines, what tends to follow is a fracturing of opinion on where these sites sit in the piracy landscape.

Both are best known for their massive archives of scientific articles and research papers. They are also notable for their absolute commitment to the spread of knowledge for the betterment of society as a whole. This means that even some otherwise staunch opponents of piracy pause for thought.

While huge publishing companies want them gone, support for these platforms among the knowledge-thirsty can be robust. Just over a week ago, the passion for keeping Libgen alive became evident in a Reddit thread (posted by a user known as ‘shrine’) titled ‘Charitable seeding for nonprofit scientific torrents’

“Libgen is a 33 terabyte scientific library with 2.4 million free books covering science, engineering, and medicine,” ‘shrine’ began.

“It’s the largest free library in the world, servicing tens of thousands of scientists and medical professionals around the world who live in developing countries that can’t afford to buy books and scientific journals. There’s almost nothing else like this on Earth – they’re using torrents to fulfill World Health Organization and U.N. charters.”

However, the torrents used by Libgen were not in good shape so ‘shrine’ began a movement to boost the quality of their swarms. The project was quickly spotted and then supported by two companies (Seedbox.io and UltraSeedbox.com) that offer ‘seedboxes’, effectively server-based torrent clients with plenty of storage space and bandwidth available – perfect for giving swarms a boost.

The project gained plenty of traction and as a follow-up thread details, considerable success. Today we catch up with ‘shrine’ for some history, background information, and an interesting status report.

“Ironically this all started when I saw the TorrentFreak article about [Libgen] mirrors getting taken down. I immediately decided I wanted to find a way to preserve and protect the collection,” ‘shrine’ says.

“I started out, but realized that the Plex server in my living room wouldn’t be enough to back up the largest free library in the world. That’s when I wrote my plea to /r/datahoarder hoping for a few guys to help out. Once the project exploded my role since then has been coordinating the hundreds of seed donations out of my Google Doc and answering as many questions as I can.”

Shrine is completely unconnected to the Libgen site but says he’s been a user for years. Before his project began he didn’t have a clear idea of how the site operated or what it took to keep it online but he’s now focused on two primary goals – back up Libgen and distribute the data so that people can find new ways to utilize it.

“The collection we’re seeding now is 32TB (18%) of [Libgen’s] total collection, so it’s just the first step in preserving the project,” he says, pointing to Libgen’s stats page.

We asked ‘shrine’ if any stats on swarm strengths were taken when the project began, so a comparison can be made today. He told us that an index for the collection didn’t even exist a week ago, so planning and coordination was difficult. However, some stats are available.

“The first thing I did was find a way to scrape the torrents to motivate seeders and track progress. I started collecting data on November 30th using a very cool open source indexer on GitLab,” he reveals.

While the previously-mentioned seedbox suppliers provided a huge boost to the project, there are plenty of anonymous donors and supporters behind the scenes too, even people who had no previous experience of using BitTorrent.

“I am overjoyed with the outpour of support. I have PMs from people who’ve never torrented before, have 1GB to spare, and want to know the best torrent client,” ‘shrine’ notes.

“Scientists in the Reddit threads are sharing stories of how LibGen made their research possible. Unnamed cloud providers have pledged 100TB allocation on their servers. The response has been overwhelmingly positive from everyone.”

Although ‘shrine’ regularly uses the term “we” in respect of seeding, he points out that he’s the project evangelist and there’s “nothing but Linux ISOs” on his own server. Nevertheless, the project has now turned into a movement, one that could have a profound effect on the overall free availability of scientific research.

“I only know there is no way to take the books back once they’ve been seeded. It’s a permanent library card for the world,” ‘shrine’ concludes.

Update: Seedbox.io reports they have some significant additional support for the project.

“Alongside our wonderful provider at NFOrce.nl we are going to sponsor up an entire server which will be big enough to hold the entire libgen project in full. Lets get this thing well seeded for the future so others can benefit from it!”

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Research released by the EUIPO last week revealed that pirate IPTV services generate nearly €1 million in revenue per year. That’s in Europe alone.

The figure confirmed that piracy remains a massive problem, but a second study also delivered some more positive news. From 2017 to 2018, access to pirated content across Europe dropped by more than 15 percent.

This headline figure was undoubtedly welcomed by copyright holders, but the broader report deserves more in-depth analysis.

For starters, the study only covers part of the piracy landscape. It is based on data provided by the piracy tracking company MUSO which solely looks at website visits. This means that apps, streaming devices, and IPTV services are not included.

This may shed a different light on the piracy drop, as these untracked piracy channels have grown explosively in recent years. According to some, these streaming tools are the largest piracy threat at the moment. As such, it’s entirely possible that overall piracy levels didn’t drop, or could even have grown.

When we asked EUIPO about this caveat, it informed us that MUSO’s data, together with that from the European Audiovisual Observatory and Eurostat, was chosen to get the most complete picture possible.

“The MUSO database was chosen as a source of data to enable us to get as full a picture as possible of online copyright infringement in the EU to which the methodology could be applied,” EUIPO informed us.  

That makes sense, as the newer piracy tools are simply harder to track, so there may simply be no data available.

While EUIPO’s ‘picture’ only covers part of the piracy landscape, it is very detailed and suitable for comparisons over time, based on a wide variety of variables. This provided some interesting insights, especially when it comes to regional differences.

For example, total piracy, specified by the number of site visits per user per month, is by far the highest in Latvia and Lithuania. The relative piracy volume there is more than six times as high as in Finland, as can be seen below.

The logical conclusion would be that piracy is far more prevalent in countries on the left. However, caution is warranted, as this only covers site-based piracy.

Last week, the other EUIPO study showed that IPTV piracy is below average in Latvia, while it’s high in this report. On the other hand, site-based piracy is below-average in Spain, where IPTV piracy is thriving. And we haven’t even considered streaming boxes and apps.

One major difference between site-based piracy and IPTV piracy is that the latter usually requires a subscription. In other words, people have to pay to pirate. That may, at least in part, be due to regional differences, as countries differ in their average income per person.

The money element was also considered in the EUIPO study. Following statistical analyses, the researchers found that a lower income per capita is linked to more piracy. Again, this is solely based on website visits.

“Among the socio-economic factors, the level of income per capita and the extent of inequality seem to have the greatest impact on consumption of pirated content: high per capita income and a low degree of income inequality are associated with lower levels of illicit consumption,” the report concludes.

The link between income and piracy is not counterintuitive. That’s also true for the link that was found between social acceptance of piracy and piracy volume. What is surprising, however, is that awareness of legal services and piracy is absent for some content.

EUIPO found that more awareness of legal TV services was linked to more TV piracy. For music, a similar trend was found, albeit not statistically significant. More awareness of legal movie services, on the other hand, was linked to less piracy, as expected.

“It appears that the relationship between legal offer and piracy is a complex one and merits further investigation,” EUIPO concludes.

Overall the EUIPO study provides some interesting views on the piracy landscape in the EU. While it only covers site-based traffic, it’s clear that piracy habits differ greatly from country to country, and that they’re not always easy to grasp.

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A copy of the report titled: “Online copyright infringement in the European Union” is available here (pdf).

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In 2010, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Homeland Security began their first rounds of domain name seizures.

Under the flag of “Operation In Our Sites” the authorities shut down a dozen file-sharing and streaming sites, as well as many sites that sold counterfeit goods.

The action had a massive impact at the time. It resulted in several high profile arrests, including those of several NinjaVideo operators. However, they were not without controversy either.

Several sites that were accused of piracy fought back. As a result, U.S. authorities had to return the domain name of sports streaming site Rojadirecta after a few months. And years later, the DoJ also dropped its case against torrent search engine Torrent-Finder.

Despite this rocky start, Operation In Our Sites continued. In fact, the number of seizures only increased and by 2012 the campaign expanded internationally as well, with Europe joining in.

Over the past years, the number of targeted domains continued to grow. Last year, the US National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center said it took down over a million domains in just a year. An unprecedented number, but one that didn’t draw any major headlines.

Yesterday Europol announced its latest efforts. With help from international law enforcement agencies, it seized 30,506 domain names. According to the organization, these domains distributed counterfeit and pirated items.

Among other things, the sites reportedly offered pirated movies, illegal television streaming, music, software, counterfeit pharmaceuticals and other illicit goods. In addition, officials also arrested three individuals while freezing more than €150,000 from various bank accounts and online payment providers.

While these numbers are impressive, today’s Operation In Our Sites doesn’t have the media impact it had in the early days. Of course, there are news outfits rehashing Europol’s press release, noting that thousands of pirate sites have been taken offline, but that’s about it.

What stands out most is that, in recent years, we haven’t been able to spot any pirate sites that were affected by such seizures. This, despite the fact that well over a million domains were seized.

There’s no separate breakdown for the number of pirate and counterfeit domains. We assume that the majority of the affected domain names were linked to counterfeiting instead of piracy, but still, both categories are mentioned.

The lack of visible impact stands in major contrast to the first year when only a few dozen domains were targeted. At the time, that lead to months of news coverage, lawsuits, and even questions from high profile politicians, including US Senator Ron Wyden.

TorrentFreak reached out to Europol to find out what the most recent piracy targets were, but at the time of writing, we have yet to hear back. It’s clear, however, that Operation In Our Sites hasn’t targeted any major pirate sites in recent years.

The big question is why. How does Europol pick its targets? And if it’s so easy to seize tens of thousands of domains, why do these major enforcement agencies only focus on smaller sites?

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The so-called ‘Six-Strikes’ Copyright Alert System was once praised as an excellent tool to address online piracy.

Under the agreement, which included the major rightsholder groups MPA and RIAA, several large Internet providers in the US sent copyright infringement warnings to pirating customers.

After repeated alerts, these subscribers would face a variety of ‘mitigation’ measures but their accounts would not be terminated. Although rightsholders and ISPs appeared happy with the deal, it was shut down nearly three years ago.

Instead of cooperating with ISPs, several RIAA members then took another approach by filing lawsuits against Internet providers for not doing enough to curb piracy. This also happened to Cox, which was sued for failing to disconnect repeat infringers.

The lawsuit between several music companies and Cox is scheduled to go to trial later this month. Interestingly, the ISP is now planning to use the aforementioned Copyright Alert System (CAS) as evidence in its favor.

Cox was asked to participate in the voluntary anti-piracy scheme years ago but chose not to do so. According to the company, its own “strike” policy was already functioning well and perhaps even better than the industry-approved alternative.

This line of reasoning is also relevant for the ongoing legal dispute, Cox believes. The RIAA members disagreed and previously asked the court to exclude it from the trial. However, according to a recent ruling from Judge Liam O’Grady, the ISP is permitted to use it in its favor.

“Defendants are permitted to put on evidence about the Copyright Alert System as well as its own graduated response system, the Cox Abuse Ticket System,” O’Grady writes.

In addition, Cox is also allowed to present evidence about the policies at other ISPs, as identified in related reports, as long as it is relevant to the case.

This is a clear setback for the music labels which argued that the policies and actions of other ISPs and the CAS are irrelevant. It doesn’t matter whether Cox’s own anti-piracy system was reasonable or effective in comparison with other providers, they said.

The court disagreed, however, but it also brought some bad news for Cox.

The ISP planned to cite internal research to suggest that 96% of subscribers stopped receiving notices after the 5th warning. This was concluded in 2010 and resulted in the ISP’s belief that its “graduated response” system was effective.

According to the music companies these conclusions, of which the underlying data is no longer available, were based on a “mess of misleading calculations.” As such, they wanted it excluded from the trial.

Judge O’Grady agreed with the music companies. After reviewing the arguments from both sides, he concludes that there is no adequate foundation for the information presented in the “96% Stop By 5 Notices” evidence.

“Defendants have had ample time to produce such a foundation, and failed to do so. Discrepancies in numbers and figures as detailed in Plaintiffs’ briefs raise an alarming number of questions that demand the underlying data be produced, not just the emails Defendants offer in support,” O’Grady writes.

With these and various other motions dealt with, the trial will soon get underway. While some boundaries have been set, there is still plenty left to argue over.

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A copy of U.S. District Court Judge Liam O’Grady’s order is available here (pdf).

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