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Comment by dr_dshiv | Hacker News Reader

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dr_dshiv

Why don't I donate to Sci-Hub? I'm terrified it will go away like Napster did.

Update: because (unlike wikipedia) they only take cryptocurrencies. I get it! https://sci-hub.se/donate

Anyone want to donate and I'll match your donation to wikipedia?

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People donate to help avoid this from happening

I'd love an actual legal opinion about whether or not it's okay to donate to SciHub in different countries. I know it's all crypto, but you could imagine that some places might have a dim view of financially supporting what is unfortunately likely to be viewed as a "serious" criminal enterprise.

I've donated from Germany. No police yet, though to be fair I also didn't try to deduct it from taxes. Maybe I should try that and report back.

In the US tax deductions can be made only for donating to legal entities of a specific type, i.e. a nonprofit org. These aren’t arbitrary things you can say to receive donations but have to register as a certain kind of business.

That either exists or it doesn’t.

I would assume something similar is true in Germany.

Not a lawyer, but if your justice department decides to go after Alexandra Elbakyan, they could in theory also charge you as an accessory, though this will vary wildly depending on which country you live in.

if more people donate it seems less likely that anyone would go after individual donors… not the reassurance you’re after, but it might be the best you can get

Use Monero?

You could donate via Monero so from the Sci-Hub side its impossible to track back to you

Well, they accept a good variety of crypto, including the notoriously anonymous XMR

See USA vs. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. People who ran a charity which gave money to another charity which helped orphans, some of whom allegedly (according to an anonymous tipster) happened to be orphaned because their parents had committed terrorist attacks, were sentenced to 65 years in prison.

TBH, Holy Land Foundation is not some random charity that happened by coincidence to help some orphans whose parents maybe were terrorists. It was a front end for Hamas, them collecting money overseas (measured in millions of dollars) and Hamas controlling and distributing the money on the ground. Hamas has always had, beside its military wing, a large non-military organization, including schools, charities, mosques, libraries, hospitals, sporting clubs, etc. Holy Land Foundation was the part of this framework, and a part of the traditional structure where families of terrorists, either dead or imprisoned, were paid pensions. Each palestinian organization has such program, with PA mostly drawing it from its general budget (US is not too happy about it, as you can imagine, but little can be done to completely prevent it since the money is fungible) and Hamas through its charity network.

So no, it's not just a rumor through an anonymous tipster, it's a well known and established system, which has been operating for years and still is - just not through HLF nowdays, obviously.

you donated to Napster?

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