For instance, in the University of Oxford v. But publishers of textbooks and literature have yet to attain this level of success in cracking down on online piracy of their content.Įven offline, courts have typically hesitated to give in to copyright claims by academic publishers. Piracy of films and TV series in India has been curtailed somewhat as a result of studios’ years-long efforts in court, such as with so-called “John Doe” orders, where they obtain bulk blocking orders for several such sites in one fell swoop. “They will not be able to meaningfully engage with social scientists from other countries, expand our collective knowledge and continue to contribute to policy building,” the researchers said in a brief submitted to the court. “If the suit is decreed in favour of the Plaintiffs and access to Lib-Gen is blocked, social science researchers will not be able to continue with their research. While accessing copyrighted materials is illegal, Indian researchers who use Sci-Hub argued in the Delhi High Court that the cost of accessing materials from Sci-Hub and Lib-Gen legally is prohibitively expensive. The blocking is a bad sign for Library Genesis, which remains accessible in India and Sci-Hub, which provides free access to academic papers and journals that are typically paywalled. We will update this story if we obtain more information about the case in which these sites were blocked. While multiple URLs associated with Z-Library were blocked on ACT and Reliance Jio, Entrackr was able to access them on internet connections provided by Airtel. The order does not appear to have been implemented fully by other Internet Service Providers yet. Z-Library is said to be a ‘mirror’ of Library Genesis, but appears to have a larger catalog with content from other sources as well, including academic papers.Ī message from ACT Broadband when trying to access Z-Library sites shows that the blocking is the result of a court order. While American publishers like Wiley and Elsevier have been pursuing a case in the Delhi High Court against two similar platforms - Library Genesis and Sci-Hub - it is unclear which court ordered the block on these sites. Multiple URLs associated with Z-Library show a message saying that they have been blocked as a result of a court order. Z-Library, a massively popular website that allows free downloads of pirated ebooks, has been blocked in India following a court order, Entrackr has found.

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