After losing a lawsuit filed by the American Chemical Society (ACS) due to failure to appear, Sci-Hub has been ordered to pay the ACS $4.8 million. But the district court's ruling also states that the Sci-Hub website should be blocked by ISPs, search engines, and domain name registrars:
The American Chemical Society (ACS) has won a lawsuit it filed in June against Sci-Hub, a website providing illicit free access to millions of paywalled scientific papers. ACS had alleged copyright infringement, trademark counterfeiting and trademark infringement; a district court in Virginia ruled on 3 November that Sci-Hub should pay the ACS $4.8 million in damages after Sci-Hub representatives failed to attend court.
The new ruling also states that internet search engines, web hosting sites, internet service providers (ISPs), domain name registrars and domain name registries cease facilitating "any or all domain names and websites through which Defendant Sci-Hub engages in unlawful access to, use, reproduction, and distribution of the ACS Marks or ACS's Copyrighted Works."
"This case could set precedent for the extent third-parties on the internet are required to enforce government-mandated censorship," says Daniel Himmelstein, a data scientist at the University of Pennsylvania who recently analyzed how many journal papers Sci-Hub holds.
Sci-Hub hosts millions of unpaywalled, full academic papers.
Previously: Elsevier Cracks Down on "Pirate" Science Search Engines
The Research Pirates of the Dark Web
Sci-Hub, the Repository of "Infringing" Academic Papers Now Available Via "Telegram"
Elsevier Wants $15 Million Piracy Damages from Sci-Hub and Libgen
US Court Grants Elsevier Millions in Damages From Sci-Hub
Sci-Hub Faces $4.8 Million Piracy Damages and ISP Blocking
(Score: 5, Informative) by arcz on Wednesday November 08 2017, @02:03PM (2 children)
The court lacks jurisdiction over non-parties. This order is illegal because the recipient of the order must be given both service of process AND an opportunity to object to the order and appeal and whatnot.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 08 2017, @03:35PM
Activist judges do whatever the hell they want to do. Remember when California passed a constitutional amendment, defining marriage - and some fucking judge threw it out. Judges are demigods, if they choose to be.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Wednesday November 08 2017, @04:58PM
What do you mean, surely this is legal under SOPA?
It's just another judge acting like SOPA actually passed.