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Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Swedish ISP punishes Elsevier for forcing it to block Sci-Hub by also blocking Elsevier
[...] Unfortunately for Swedes and for science, the Swedish Patent and Market Court (which never met a copyright overreach it didn't love) upheld the order, and Bahnhof, a small ISP with limited resources, decided not to appeal (a bigger, richer ISP had just lost a similar appeal).
Instead, Bahnhof now blocks attempts to visit Sci-Hub domains, and Elsevier.com, redirecting attempts to visit Elsevier to a page explaining how Elsevier's sleaze and bullying have allowed it to monopolize scientific publishing, paywalling publicly funded science that is selected, reviewed and edited by volunteers who mostly work for publicly funded institutions.
To as[sic] icing on this revenge-flavored cake, Bahnhof also detects attempts to visit its own site from the Patent and Market Court and redirects them to a page explaining that since the Patent and Market Court believes that parts of the web should be blocked, Bahnhof is blocking the court's access to its part of the web.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Monday November 05 2018, @12:48PM (3 children)
Considering that Elsevier is mostly for academics, I don't know if there is large amount of private citizens in Sweden or elsewhere that uses their publications since they are quite expensive. All the Swedish universities are on their own private network (sunet.se) and are completely unaffected by this whole thing. So it seems like it's fairly pointless tit for tat bullshit just to get some publicity. If this hadn't been publicized like this I doubt anyone, or very many people, would even have noticed it.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Monday November 05 2018, @02:12PM (2 children)
If academics are all on their own private network, why go to the trouble of getting a court order to get a private citizens ISP to block an academic site, seems like it's fairly pointless bullshit just to get some publicity?
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Monday November 05 2018, @05:01PM
This is the part I'm not really getting either. It somehow seems futile and that there should be other reasons behind this. It could be part of a wider series of lawsuits, currently the same lawyers using orders from the same court are trying to make the largest ISP in Sweden (Telia) block TPB and some other movie hosting sites and such and Telia told them to fuck off and see you in court. They are to large to be bullied by puny lawyers. I guess if they can force a smaller ISP to block they can somehow use that to show that it's a possible and reasonable thing to do (from their perspective).
https://computersweden.idg.se/2.2683/1.708743/domstol-telia-blockera-piratebay [computersweden.idg.se]
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fcomputersweden.idg.se%2F2.2683%2F1.708743%2Fdomstol-telia-blockera-piratebay&edit-text= [google.com]
(can't find a news piece about it in English but google translate to the rescue and it gives a somewhat basic translation and idea of the case.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday November 06 2018, @02:58PM
Eh, I see people post scientific studies in Facebook comments. Sometimes academics want to access these from home, either to do work outside of the office or to work on hobby ideas or just to argue with their friends and family.
Previously, they could use Sci-Hub, no problem. With Sci-Hub blocked, they're more likely to turn to Elsevier. Of course, someone has to pay for that, but I'm guessing there's some mechanism where universities/corporations could pay for personal access by their employees. But if the ISP blocks Elsevier too, that won't work. Probably the solution then becomes a VPN back to the university, but then they can likely use the existing university access rather than paying Elsevier extra for personal accounts.
Elsevier wouldn't be paying to fight this battle if they didn't expect to profit from it in the end. Cutting them off from their potential customers seems like a decent way to make that plan backfire. One ISP alone isn't going to do it, but maybe the idea can spread...