Your friend is probably thinking of Sci-Hub. Warning: it's likely illegal, including to use the service (as opposed to uploading stuff onto it), in most jurisdictions. If it's not already illegal in your jurisdiction, the trend is towards illegality (i.e. lawsuit after lawsuit has been ruled on, ...
@asmgx in theory, it's possible. For example, your university almost surely asked you not to do illegal things when they provided you with internet access. If you did illegal things anyway using their internet access, they could, in theory, revoke your studentship. In practice, Sci-Hub has enough users (+ many academics are sympathetic to the service) that you'll probably never be confronted with disciplinary procedures or law enforcement.
Also Poland was mentioned in some comments here, but I could find no third-party confirmations. It would make a good question for this site, I believe.
@FedericoPoloni interesting. I wish for a stronger source that cites the legal casesinstead of simply states "the use of Sci-Hub is not illegal in Switzerland". As for Poland, it's in the EU, in which it's established that it's illegal to access papers in Sci-Hub (see very detailed answer here: law.stackexchange.com/questions/33639/…)
@FedericoPoloni it seems according to Swiss copyright law (admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/19920251/index.html), article 20(2) says you are allowed to make copies for personal use, but you also owe remuneration to the copyright holder. So that makes downloading papers off Sci-Hub legal if you also pay the publisher, which defeats the purpose of Sci-Hub in the first place. But then again, I'm not a lawyer. If you cross-post the question on the Law SE, I'll upvote it.
According to 20(2), you only owe remuneration if the use pertains to 19.1(b) and (c), that is, 19.1(a) "personal use of a work or use within a circle of persons closely connected to each other, such as relatives or friends" is free. (One could argue that use within a university falls under (c), though.)
@FedericoPoloni Now that I look at it again, 19(a) doesn't say you are allowed to make copies (as downloading papers would be); it only says you are allowed to use the work. 19(c) mentions copying, but it also says you must pay the copyright holder. I don't know, would refer to more knowledgeable people at the Law SE.
It may be worth mentioning that SciHub no longer functions as a "search engine" per se. It gives accessto articles based on a DOI or URL, but it's not much use without a functional search engine that will allow you to find the articles you want. If you try to enter search terms directly, you will not get results.
It is not true that Sci-Hub is illegal to use in most jurisdictions; see this debate between me and Allure on this point. Also, AFAICT, there is no global trend of making the use of Sci-Hub for research illegal.
@Allure Czech republic also allows personal copies of copyrighted works for personal use. We pay a lot in the prices pf memories discs and other media. Also in the prices of copy machines and copying servixes. That money goes to author protection societies. I do not believe EU could resolve anything that would be in clash with these copyright laws. Thst even makes usage of downloading sites like uloz.to legal. It is indeed very commonly used and the usage is not persecuted in any way AFAIK. Sharing copyrighted conent is illegal and that is what makes p2p networks illegal. But downloading.
@VladimirF Czech republic is part of the EU, and downloading papers from SciHub is illegal in the EU. See the link above (law.stackexchange.com/questions/33639/…). To quote from the top answer there, "In ACI Adam, it was determined at the EU level that the private copying exception must only apply to lawful sources", and SciHub is not a lawful source.
I consider it pretty nonsensical that the moderators did not delete einpoklum's misinformation-spreading comment. Fortunately those people who care can access that question, as well as the Law SE question linked in the comment above, and draw their own conclusions.
@Allure You are also misinterpretting. The link says that it shall be a source that is "not obviously unlawful", not "lawful". I say again, downloading from services like uloz.to is NOT persecuted in any way in the Czech Republic. If you have vested interests as a copyright holder, as you appear to have from your stubbornness, well, you may try to force this EU judicature in the Czech courts. However, it is so far not done in practice.
There is much more money in the film industry and it is extremely unlikely someone downloading a paper, and not sharing it further, would have problems before those downloading blockbuster films from sharing websites start to have problems. And it does not happen (perhaps yet). However withdrawing a PhD because downloading is a complete nonsense. People done much worse things in terms of plagiarism and did not loose their degrees. Universities will not remove a degree even for serious violent crimes, it is a thing the courts and prisons deal with, it does not concern the degree.
@VladimirF are you disagreeing with the statement that SciHub is obviously unlawful? That is, are you saying that uploading stuff to SciHub (not just downloading stuff from SciHub) is not obviously unlawful? As for "not done in practice" - I said as much above. To quote: "In practice, Sci-Hub has enough users (+ many academics are sympathetic to the service) that you'll probably never be confronted with disciplinary procedures or law enforcement." The fact that it is not prosecuted does NOT mean it is legal.
As the author of the answer @Allure is citing, I'll jump in with a clarification. Yes, the EU court's ACI Adam decision is explicit that only lawful sources may be used for private copying. However, German law is potentially inconsistent by adding "not obviously unlawful" sources. In my answer, I argue in a footnote that the ratio decidendi (legal reasoning) the court uses equally applies to "not obviously unlawful" sources. Not something tested yet at the EU level as far as I'm aware.
Of course, being technically illegal, and actually being sued at an individual level are completely different thing. Also, FYI I'm actually working on an answer on Law.SE for the Switzerland question, but it's taking a long time... Swiss law was unexpectedly complicated with exceptions upon exceptions in this area.
Hmmm... looking at cited links there's also debate whether it's legal to download from illegal sources when for the purpose of "scientific research". I want to be clear my EU answer sidestepped this question entirely. If I had to guess though, it isn't, EU case law has tended to discourage illegal sources (ACI Adam, Filmspeler, GS Media, though that last one just on for-profit sites)
Discussion on answer by Allure: A fre…
Discussion on answer by Allure: A fre…