Flibusta
| flibusta | |
| |
| |
| URL | https://flibusta.is/ |
| Status | Endangered |
| Archiving status | Not saved yet |
| Archiving type | DPoS |
| IRC channel | #archiveteam-bs (on hackint) |
flibusta[1] is a strictly non-commercial[2] Russian-language shadow library with a long history. In 2009 it took the contents of the previously open lib.rus.ec library[3] and set on its own path. While the library gained prominence (and notoriety) for hosting copyrighted books, it has built a community and provided a place to review books and talk to other readers on the forums. It could be described as the Russian TPB for books. Some known authors have been participating in the community too[4].
The site has been banned in Russia at ISP level for copyright infringement years ago. Various mirrors came up, both official and not:
- flibusta.net - redirects to .is (2024-11-01)
- flibusta.is - current official domain
- flisland.net - Wikipedia article claims "no book text access" through this domain
- official TOR and I2P mirrors
Project founder's death
On September 23rd, 2024[5][6] the project's founder Stiver posted publically about his hospitalization and the found brain tumor. In the same post he marked the end of Flibusta ("and himself") and said the servers are paid for a couple weeks in advance. Later an update was added that "the servers are paid for, the website is being supported and the status is stable". On October 22nd, a post-mortem post[7] was published to announce his medically assisted death on the 20th.
Overall, the communication appears sparse or publically invisible. Therefore the status should remain uncertain/endangered for the foreseeable future.
Archivation scope
- Book info pages: metadata, reviews (comments) and user scores
- Forum: close to 500k posts
- (?) Users' reading lists are available after login
- Basically everything except the book downloads themselves. The site is poorly structured, exploration will be needed to understand what's hidden where.
Database dumps
Database dumps for the book metadata section (reviews, author lists, ratings, genres, book series; but no forum information and no books) are provided by the site itself, available at https://flibusta.is/sql/, generated daily.
References
- ↑ Wikipedia article in Russian
- ↑ "Life after flibusta" - Novaya Gazeta: because librusec went commercial, Stiver (flibusta's founder) decided to take a principled stance and create a non-commercial project, read the paragraph at "«Либрусек», видимо, под давлением жизненных обстоятельств".
- ↑ librusec Wikipedia article in Russian
- ↑ https://flibusta.is/node/681117
- ↑ https://habr.com/ru/news/852644/
- ↑ https://flibusta.is/node/684900