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posted by martyb on Wednesday November 08 2017, @01:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the I'm-sure-yandex.ru-will-get-right-on-it dept.

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


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 08 2017, @06:00PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 08 2017, @06:00PM (#594173) Journal
    Ok, why is some judge punishing parties who have nothing to do with a court case? Sounds to me instead like an argument to reset the court case since now we have more parties with standing in the case who weren't properly notified of the case before it started. That's grounds for a mistrial IMHO.

    Why this is a good idea

    You didn't actually give a reason why this was a "good idea" even as sarcasm. The capability to discriminate on search results and internet traffic is not an obligation to do so. Let us keep in mind that the judge could still command this even in the presence of net neutrality laws.