Sci-Hub should host an IPFS node with all their contents. Once owner sets-up IPFS directory, owner can update it (it's not static like torrents), other nodes will download changes, it will be distributed, censorship-resistant and shared between community of people who pin directories on their PCs and ARM computers.

Another similar solution would be to setup ResilioSync or LibreVault repositories, again makes it decentralized by P2P, there are public repositories so anyone can join and leach/seed files, owner can update files.

I'm surprised they're not doing it already.

First off, there's a difference between Sci-Hub (no content is hosted, only a portal) and LibGen. Papers downloaded from Sci-Hub are hosted in the latter. And secondly, they do offer torrents as a P2P solution: http://gen.lib.rus.ec/repository_torrent/

I'm not familiar enough with IPFS, but I think once onions play nicely with IPFS (i.e. when this is solved[1]), then it could be very promising. I'm not sure how censorship resistant it could be.

[1] : https://github.com/ipfs/notes/issues/37

> they do offer torrents as a P2P solution: http://gen.lib.rus.ec/repository_torrent/

yes, that's the problem. Once you have a torrent they can't add new files to the torrent, they have to make a new one, and you have to download the new one.

Also this website is blocked in the UK.

> Also this website is blocked in the UK.

Use the Tor Browser to access it: https://torproject.org/download

I have a VPN at home.

How does censorship resistance work in this case? Simply by giving the rights holders more targets to sue / have taken offline?

Exactly, which is extremely effective - good luck suing someone in China who doesn't give a fuck about US copyright (and in this case rightly so).

So in other words, the technology doesn't have any particular benefits in this regard — all of the advantages come from hosting somewhere without a high enforcement risk.