# Politicising piracy: Download / Upload

The next session focuses on large repositories of digital text, so called *shadow libraries*, that are technologically organised around actions of upload and download to and from server infrastructures. The session introduce learners to:

- a) workflows used in text sharing, collection-building and collection-maitaining;
- b) three shadow libraries: [Library Genesis](https://gen.lib.rus.ec), [Aaaaarg](https://aaaaarg.fail) and [Memory of the World](https://library.memoryoftheworld.org), and the legal pressures they face;
- c) politicising interventions that articulate practices of text sharing as massive, collective and commoning.

Learners will get acquainted with three shadow libraries that are created by communities of contributors and benefit a larger public. The fact that they maintain centralised repositories and they do not obfuscate their own existence entails a need for articulation of politics of collective disobedience and practice of collective custodianship. This session covers a lot of practical ground and different debates, requiring more time than the remaining sessions in this topic. You can break up these segments into separate chunks of time or re-organise them into one longer workshop. Depending on the number of participants and their skills, the time needed for each segments might vary from what is proposed.

## Segment 1: Download / Upload

Duration: 90 minutes

Methods: learning by doing, learners have to use their own computers to complete the tasks.

Goal: In this practical segment, the learners will acquire first-hand knowledge how to upload and download, create collections and maintain collections on Library Genesis, Aaaaarg and Memory of the World.

Task 1:
- download from Library Genesis,
- [upload to Library Genesis](https://libgen.is/librarian/) (uname:genesis, passwd: upload),
- [upload using LibGen Desktop](https://wiki.mhut.org/software:libgen_desktop)

Task 2:
- login to Aaaaarg,
- download from Aaaaarg,
- add a [request for an item](https://aaaaarg.fail/thing/add) and upload that item,
- start a [new collection](https://aaaaarg.fail/collection/add), add items to your collection (go to an item -> collections column -> 'sort into collection')
- start a [discussion](https://aaaaarg.fail/talk/add), add to an existing discussion

Task 3:
- download from Memory of the World,
- install [Calibre](https://calibre-ebook.com/download), add an item to Calibre, edit its metadata (right click -> edit metadata)

Discussion: Learners should summarise the differences between the three shadow libraries, particularly laying focus on public accessiblity, how the work of uploading items is organised, how the bibliographic metadata is handled and what type of engagement of community of uploaders and community of downloaders they suggest.

## Segment 2: Library Genesis

Duration: 90 minutes

Methodology: reading & discussion, analysis of interface

Goal: In this segment the learners will get acquainted with the history, community and communication infrastructure of Library Genesis. Library Genesis has emerged as the largest shadow library after the collection of Gigapedia/Library.nu was merged to its collection and is presently, by some margin, the largest of shadow libraries holds over 2 million titles. Library Genesis's code, database and collection are all downloadable and there is a number of mirrors providing alternative access to some or all of its holdings.

The segment starts from discussing two texts documenting the history and operation of Library Genesis that the learners are asked to read in advance. They are then given time to to analyse the segments of the Library Genesis website and [the bulletin board forum of the Library Genesis](https://forum.mhut.org/viewforum.php?f=6).

The aim is to get learners to see how the politics of community is implement and follows from the technical aspects of the Library Genesis.

### Resources:

Tenen, D. and Foxman, M. (2014) ‘Book Piracy as Peer Preservation’. *Computational Culture* [online] (4). available from <http://computationalculture.net/book-piracy-as-peer-preservation/> [28 November 2019]

Bodó, B. (2018) ‘The Genesis of Library Genesis: The Birth of a Global Scholarly Shadow Library’. in *Shadow Libraries: Access to Knowledge in Global Higher Education*. Karaganis, J. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 25–51.

## Segment 3: Aaaaarg & Memory of the World - legal cases and politicisation

Duration: 90 minutes

Methodology: advance reading and discussion guided through questions

The learners are asked in advance to read up on Aaron Swartz, on Elsevier v Library Genesis case, and read the texts *Aaaaarghhhhh, a Lawsuit!*, Custodians.online letter and 'System of a Takedown'. Discussion should first start from going back to the shutdown of Gigapedia/Library.nu that led to the ascendancy of Library Genesis. Learners are asked to summarise the aspects of legal cases around shadow libraries and reflect on larger context of struggles over copyright and intellectual property that these are part of. They are asked to reflect on the denial of access and limitation of the mission of public libraries, and the complementarity of shadow libraries and public libraries.

Discussion should then focus on implications of the three shadow libraries that operate in public view, maintain largely centralised repositories and transparent operation - what strategies do they use to diminish legal vulnerability and what arguments do they use, for those that do, to publicly articulate their work? What role does in those stategies play the societal institutions of production and dissemination of knowledge with their missions and processes — for instance, public library and it's mission of providing decommodified access to all literature to all of the society.

Lastly, the discussion should focus on the Custodians.online letter, to analyse the main points around the inversion of property form into a commons, collective disobedience and insertion into the larger context of socio-economic crisis.

### Resources:

American Library Association (2012) An open letter to America’s publishers from ALA President Maureen Sullivan [online] available from <http://www.ala.org/news/2012/09/open-letter-america%E2%80%99s-publishers-ala-president-maureen-sullivan> [13 January 2018]

‘Sci-Hub Ordered to Pay $15 Million in Piracy Damages’ (2017) *TorrentFreak* [online] 23 June. available from <https://torrentfreak.com/sci-hub-ordered-to-pay-15-million-in-piracy-damages-170623/> [27 August 2017]

Swartz, A. (2015) *Guerilla Open Access Manifesto* [online] available from <https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt> [18 October 2015]

Custodians.online (2015) *In Solidarity with Library Genesis and Sci-Hub* [online] available from <http://custodians.online> [12 May 2017]

*Aaaaarghhhhh, a Lawsuit!* (2016) available from <https://www.gofundme.com/f/aaaaarg> [28 November 2019]

Mars, M. and Medak, T. (2019) ‘System of a Takedown: Control and De-Commodification in the Circuits of Academic Publishing’. in *Archives*. ed. by Lison, A. Minneapolis, MI: University of Minnesota Press & meson.press, 47–68

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# Library Genesis, Custodians.online, collection and maintenance

### Download/upload

- organizing technical principle: download/upload
- organizing social principle:
- libgen: popular web/bulletin-board forum
- aaaaarg: organizing knowledge structure via custom web app
- motw: dedicated amateur librarian community (calibre>accorder)
- politicizing/interventions:
- custodians.online letter
- aaaaarg court case (crowd funding)
- aaaaarg verso letter

- hands-on:
- download/upload libgen
- download/upload + creating/maintaining aaaaarg collections
- download/upload + motw librarian workflow

These sessions introduce learners to the a) practices of sharing, collection-building and collection-maitaining of di of large digital repositories and the confluence that have lead to the emergence of Library Genesis, the largest of shadow libraries that presently holds over 2 million titles. Library Genesis

reading: Balász Bodó: "The Genesis of Library Genesis: The Birth of a Global Scholarly Shadow Library." In J. Karaganis (Ed.), *Shadow Libraries: Access to Knowledge in Global Higher Education* (pp. 25-51). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.

The copying of censored and uncensored works (by hand, typewriters, photocopiers or—later—computers), the hoarding of copied texts, the buying and selling of books on the black market, and the informal, peer-to-peer distribution of samizdat material were part of the everyday experience of educated Soviet and post-Soviet readers. The building and maintenance of individual collections and participation in the informal networks of exchange offered a sense of political, economic, and cultural agency—especially as the public institutions that supported the core professions of the intel-ligentsia fell into sustained economic crisis. Digital technologies were integrated into these practices as soon as they appeared. As one shadow library administrator remembers:

From late 1970s, when first computers became used in the USSR and printers became available, people started to print forbidden books, or just books that were difficult to find, not necessarily forbidden. I have seen myself a print-out on a mainframe computer of a science fiction novel, printed in all caps! Samizdat was printed on typewriters, xeroxed, printed abroad and xeroxed, or printed on computers. Only paper circulated. Files could not circulate until people started to have PCs at home. As late as 1992 most people did not have a PC at home. So the only reason to type a long text into a computer was to print it on paper.