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TorrentFreak reports that the academic publishing giant Elsevier has filed a complaint in a New York District Court to attempt to shut down the Library Genesis and SciHub.org search engines:
According to Elsevier the company is losing revenue because of these sites, so in order to stem the tide the publisher has filed a complaint [PDF] at a New York federal court hoping to shut them down.
"Defendants are reproducing and distributing unauthorized copies of Elsevier's copyrighted materials, unlawfully obtained from ScienceDirect, through Sci-Hub and through various websites affiliated with the Library Genesis Project," the complaint reads. "Specifically, Defendants utilize their websites located at sci-hub.org and at the Libgen Domains to operate an international network of piracy and copyright infringement by circumventing legal and authorized means of access to the ScienceDirect database," it adds.
According to Elsevier, the websites access articles by using unlawfully obtained student or faculty access credentials. The articles are then added to the "pirate" library, backed up on their own servers.
Tom Allen, President of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), informs TF that websites such as Libgen pose a threat to the quality of scientific publications, as well as the public health. "Scholarly publishers work to ensure the accuracy of the scientific record by issuing corrections and revisions to research findings as needed; Libgen typically does not," Allen says. "As a result, its repository of illegally obtained content poses a threat to both quality journal publishing and to public health and safety."
The court has yet to decide whether the injunctions should be granted, but considering outcomes in recent piracy cases there's a good chance this will happen. For the time being, however, the Libgen and Sci-hub websites remain online.
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hartree on Tuesday June 09 2015, @10:55PM
There's starting to be some pushback from academia about the closed availability of research. Especially research that was done with public money.
For example: John Baez (of This Weeks Finds in Mathematical Physics (and yes, he is related to Joan Baez the singer) has: http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/journals.html [ucr.edu]
Many of the "publishers" of scientific and technical info seem far less concerned with dissemination of information than preserving their current business models.
This is sadly similar to the music and film industry. They failed to pass along the massive cost savings of electronic communications in publishing to their subscribers and thus taught them to expect a free samizdat version via preprint servers, torrent and other means.
And, once again, history repeats itself in that they are trying to use the courts and legislation to make up for their lack of ability to adapt to a new business environment.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by captnjohnny1618 on Tuesday June 09 2015, @11:49PM
We're authoring a paper in our lab right now about some CT reconstruction software we've developed. While I don't know where the paper will ultimately end up, the software is definitely going to be released under the GPL v2.0. (most) Science belongs to the people! ;-)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Wednesday June 10 2015, @01:04AM
Time for taxpayers to retroactively demand compensation from Evilvier for profiteering using state resources ? ;-)
CRCulver seems to tell us that LibGen will make Evilviers intent doomed. And let's hope people learnt something from Aaron Swartz, JSTOR and MIT.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @01:48AM
Your populist bullshit is misplaced. You got your funding to do the research and you did it. You are free to write up your results and self-publish your results. However, if you feel compelled to publish in an expensive journal, don't bitch about the price. Just don't publish there. Most of the time you are using overhead funds to pay journal fees anyway.
(Score: 2, Informative) by captnjohnny1618 on Wednesday June 10 2015, @05:35AM
I'm perfectly OK with there being a publication fee; this is where overhead of publication should be taken care of in the case of publicly funded research and should be enough to cover the costs to the publisher to make it freely available. If the publication fee were paid for by a grant that was funded on tax dollars, then the people whose taxes funded it have to right to access that work without a private, third-party company in between them and something they've already paid for.
I could even be ok with a premium fee for access if I could be assured it would help go to fund a grant to do more of this work. But I can't be ok with lining pockets of someone who didn't necessarily need to be there in the first place. At the very least, $30 per paper is way too much and completely cost prohibitive to most individuals.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Wednesday June 10 2015, @05:57AM
It's a fair point. I think really, Elsevier have screwed up because the scientific community don't like them (based on limited anecdotal experience):
* they charge at the point of publication. Not saying this is morally wrong, more that it pisses off the scientists doing research.
* they have been accused quite a few times of letting people make up nonsense journals with "Elsevier" on the cover - so no one regards Elsevier as a serious defender of science. Any argument that Elsevier is defending the scientific record or whatever reeks of bullshit
* they charge at the point of download. Not saying this is morally wrong, more that it pisses off the scientists who are trying to read journal articles. I growl and hiss every time I see an Elsevier paywall
* they have a crap search function. Still. 20 years after google was invented. (actually I just checked and it looks like they fixed it, so scratch this one. Oh, here's an interesting article...).
Note that in UK publicly funded research must be published in open journal or equivalent. When Elsevier is involved, this means publishing on arxiv before pushing to the journal (and handing over copyright).
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 10 2015, @07:37AM
It's a fair point. I think really, Elsevier have screwed up because the scientific community don't like them (based on limited anecdotal experience):
Not just anecdotal, there is some serious screwage of actually academics, you know, people who know stuff? Elsevier is about to experience the blockade of magnitudes they cannot possibly comprehend. I saw this happen before, with the Index Prohibitorum.
* they charge at the point of publication. Not saying this is morally wrong, more that it pisses off the scientists doing research.
Not just morally wrong, but absolutely wrong in a capitalistic vampire sense. Here we have people, and I do mean "people", who have researched something out of the goodness of their own hearts or the naivitee of youthful spirit, and you want to charge them money? Ow, lowest of the low! Scum lower than lawyers! Death is too good for such as these!
* they have been accused quite a few times of letting people make up nonsense journals with "Elsevier" on the cover - so no one regards Elsevier as a serious defender of science. Any argument that Elsevier is defending the scientific record or whatever reeks of bullshit
Hmm, nonsense; Elsevier: I don't see the distinction here.
* they charge at the point of download. Not saying this is morally wrong, more that it pisses off the scientists who are trying to read journal articles. I growl and hiss every time I see an Elsevier paywall
I do more than growl and hiss, I ignore! Perhaps the PHBs at Elsevier are unaware that in academics it is not how many suckers you can rip off, it is how many colleagues you can assist. I do not cite any article in my field (and being a 2400 year old scientist, I can assure that these are many) that is held hostage by Elsevier. I make it plain to my fellow scientists that if they do publish with Elsevier, they will be ostracized by all and sundry. If you cannot take the time to figure out a way to make your findings publically available in the internet age, you have no business calling yourself a scientist. Period.
* they have a crap search function. Still. 20 years after google was invented. (actually I just checked and it looks like they fixed it, so scratch this one. Oh, here's an interesting article...).
And what good is a search function if it at most returns an abstract? 20th Century mindset, 20th Century tech. I wish Elsevier a quick and painful death, as they realize that they are standing in the way of knowledge for the sake of profit, where once they provided access at a reasonable return. Times have changed, the facilitators are now the vampires, and it is time to pound some garlic up their internet tubes. Viva, LibGen! Aaron Swartz did not die in vain! Publishers: we are coming for you, we do not forget, we do not forgive, we are scientists. Expect us.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @09:19PM
"Get off my lawn!"
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday June 10 2015, @09:44PM
I saw this happen before, with the Index Prohibitorum.
"Get off my lawn!"
Actually, that was well before there were such things as "lawns". (Except in England, of course.)