LibGen, a torrent service site, has over 33 terabytes of scientific data and research scrapped from paywalled scientific sites. Its users are able to access the service for free and download the data. The site has faced both legal and logistical issues in its bid to stay online.
Scientific papers and research data are always kept behind a paywall which a lot of people cannot afford. It is very hard to find a resource that offers open access to scientific materials and research online. However, Library Genesis and Sci-hub have grown in popularity for hosting pirated scientific materials that users can access for free.
Huddles of the torrent service site
The biggest problem they have faced has been how to survive online. They have faced both legal and logistical issues while trying to maintain an online presence. It is not uncommon to visit these sites and find that they are down due to either government shutdown or overload of data that they could not handle.
However, this is about to change with freedom of information activists promising to work together to provide a more stable platform. They have indicated that they will be reviving the torrent service site to one of the two “pirates bay of science” sites.
They have settled on Library Genesis (LibGen) which has over 33 terabytes of books, scientific papers, comics and other learning materials which they host. The torrent service platform serves the majority of scientists and science enthusiasts who are not ready to part away with their money to access the information behind the paywalls of the sites that contain the materials.
LibGen faces a lot of challenges with a lot of countries and science publishers plotting on ways to close the site. Amassing such a huge volume of data is an astounding achievement acknowledged by its owners given the odds they face.
Partnerships with other companies
The project has already attracted two seeding companies that are able to provide high bandwidth remote servers for uploading and downloading data. The two companies, Seedbox.io, and untraseedbox, have helped the torrent service site, LibGen to seed 10 terabytes and 900,000 scientific books.
LibGen has also teamed up with an archiving site, the Eye to facilitate tracking, storage, and seeding of the scientific materials. The archiving site is one of the most established archiving platforms on the internet having archived Instagram and over 80 GB of Apple videos deleted from youtube.
The torrent service site has vowed to continue its fight towards free information by partnering with like-minded ideologists. The site scraps data from behind the paywalls of paid scientific sites and posts them for free for its users.
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