I'm very confused, why would she ever have to comply with orders of an Indian (or indeed, US) court if she resides in Europe?
> One reason is that Elbakyan believes she has a shot at winning the case, and her odds might improve if she plays by the rules. “I want the Indian court to finally support free access to science,” she said. If that happened, it would mark a significant victory for Sci-Hub, with reverberations likely beyond India. Victory remains a longshot, but Elbakyan thinks it’s worth the hassle and expense. She didn’t even bother to contest the two lawsuits in the United States.
There is no hard restriction on how lawyers are paid . Judges may limit something in some specific cases etc, also they have paperwork to do for any foreign income for tax purposes. That's not unusal in many countries.
There maybe optics problem occasionally if local issue gets international funding it can undermine support etc, here the other party copyright holders are also international and she /libgen is also not local, so perhaps not as much a problem her funding comes globally
The topic of borders and the Internet is a really weird one in general. Somehow the very same people who would like Alexandra to flout any laws will jump up and down and yell "Google should be forced to do what my country tells it". Personally I find this baffling.
It isn't just about publicity, it is also about legal precedent.
In the English common law system, a judge is allowed to cite not just precedent from within their own country's legal system, but also precedent from courts in foreign common law jurisdictions. Foreign courts are not binding precedent, but a judge is allowed to say they are persuaded by the foreign court's reasoning. The propriety of citing foreign court judgements has become rather controversial in the US, but in England and other common law jurisdictions it is an accepted practice which few question.
I doubt a legal precedent from India is going to persuade the courts of developed countries like UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. Even though most of those are technically allowed to consider Indian court decisions (as a fellow common law jurisdiction), they rarely give Indian courts much heed in practice. But it may be much more influential with the courts of developing countries in Africa and elsewhere. That's what Elbakyan is trying to do, win a case in India and then use that as a springboard to winning cases in other countries too.