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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.
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Journal publisher Elsevier has agreed to open up some of the research published by Dutch researchers... by 2018:
A standoff between Dutch universities and publishing giant Elsevier is finally over. After more than a year of negotiations—and a threat to boycott Elsevier's 2500 journals—a deal has been struck: For no additional charge beyond subscription fees, 30% of research published by Dutch researchers in Elsevier journals will be open access by 2018.
"It's not the 100% that I hoped for," says Gerard Meijer, the president of Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and the lead negotiator on the Dutch side. "But this is the future. No one can stop this anymore."
The dispute involves a mandate announced in January 2014 by Sander Dekker, the Dutch minister responsible for higher education. It requires that 60% of government-funded research papers should be free to the public by 2019, and 100% by 2024. His argument, one echoed by academics around the world, is that the public has traditionally paid twice for research: once to fund the research and then again to read the results. But for-profit publishing companies like Elsevier have argued that someone has to pay for the cost of the publication, either universities paying for subscriptions, or scientists paying article processing charges to make their papers open access. (Advocates counter that the prices for both are too high considering that most of the editing and all of the reviewing is unpaid work done by academics.)
This isn't the first time researchers have agitated against Elsevier. An unenforced boycott against Elsevier journals has been running for years in the United Kingdom, though with little impact, and some universities have tried to play hardball. The Dutch gambit was different, Meijer says. "For one thing, it helped that Elsevier is based in Amsterdam," he says. "It would be very bad for them to lose the Dutch scientific community." Meijer admits that the Netherlands is a small fish. "We only publish about 2% of academic papers. But the quality of our papers is above average and we're big enough to be taken seriously."
Previously: Elsevier Cracks Down on "Pirate" Science Search Engines
The darknet is where you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. An article by Kaveh Waddell over at The Atlantic describes how you can not only access illegal drugs, weapons, and other nefarious materials, but this now includes scientific research papers. Following Elsevier's successful crackdown and dissolution of Sci-Hub, the site owner, Alexandra Elbakyan, has moved it to the darknet.
There will always be techniques for accessing paywalled research for free, even without services like Sci-Hub. Some of them are much less complex than Elbakyan's website: Researchers and scholars often use the hashtag #icanhazpdf on Twitter to ask fellow academics for paywalled articles. (There's even been scholarly work published that analyzes the phenomenon—appropriately, the research is free online.)
But Sci-Hub's ingenious methods automate the process, cut out middle men on Twitter, and don't advertise the request for, essentially, pirated research. And Elbakyan says her website's presence on the dark web will help keep it accessible even if legal action dismantles Sci-Hub's new home on the easily accessible surface web.
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
Meet the Guy Behind the Libgen Torrent Seeding Movement
Libgen and Sci-Hub, regularly referred to as the 'Pirate Bay of Science', are continually under fire. However, if all of the important data is decentralized, almost any eventuality can be dealt with. Today we meet the guy leading a new movement to ensure that Libgen's archives are distributed via the highest quality torrent swarms possible.
[...] [The] torrents used by Libgen were not in good shape so 'shrine' began a movement to boost the quality of their swarms. The project was quickly spotted and then supported by two companies (Seedbox.io and UltraSeedbox.com) that offer 'seedboxes', effectively server-based torrent clients with plenty of storage space and bandwidth available – perfect for giving swarms a boost.
The project gained plenty of traction and as a follow-up thread details, considerable success. Today we catch up with 'shrine' for some history, background information, and an interesting status report.
"Ironically this all started when I saw the TorrentFreak article about [Libgen] mirrors getting taken down. I immediately decided I wanted to find a way to preserve and protect the collection," 'shrine' says.
[...] "Scientists in the Reddit threads are sharing stories of how LibGen made their research possible. Unnamed cloud providers have pledged 100TB allocation on their servers. The response has been overwhelmingly positive from everyone."
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
Virginia District Court Demands that ISPs and Search Engines Block Sci-Hub
Sci-Hub Bounces from TLD to TLD
Sci-Hub Proves That Piracy Can be Dangerously Useful
Paywall: A Documentary About the Movement for Open-Access Science Publishing
Sci-Hub Founder Criticises Sudden Twitter Ban Over Over "Counterfeit" Content
Twitter has suspended the account of Sci-Hub, a site that offers a free gateway to paywalled research. The site is accused of violating the counterfeit policy of the social media platform. However, founder Alexandra Elbakyan believes that this is an effort to silence the growing support amidst a high profile court case in India.
[...] In recent weeks, Sci-Hub has become the focus of a high-profile lawsuit in India where Elsevier, Wiley, and American Chemical Society want the site blocked. The case isn't as straightforward as in other countries, in part because access to Sci-Hub is seen as vital by many local academics.
Earlier this week, the Indian High Court declared the case an "issue of public importance," inviting experts and scientists to testify on the matter. Meanwhile, however, the pressure on Sci-Hub grows.
Judge: Sci-Hub Blocking Case "Important" For Science, Community Representations Will Be Heard
Futurism has done an interview over e-mail with Alexandra Elbakyan who founded Sci-Hub ten years ago. Over that time, it has become both widely used and well-stocked, having picked up momentum in 2016. There are now over 87 million research articles in its database, though not evenly distributed over academic disciplines.
As of September, Sci-Hub has officially existed for 10 years — a milestone that came as a lawsuit to determine if the website infringed on copyright laws sits in India’s Delhi High Court. Just a few months prior, Elbakyan tweeted that she was notified of a request from the FBI to access her data from Apple. And before that, the major academic publisher Elsevier was awarded $15 million in damages after the Department of Justice ruled that Sci-Hub broke copyright law in the U.S.
But that ruling can’t seem to touch Sci-Hub. And Elbakyan remains absolutely unrepentant. She advocates for a future in which scientific knowledge is shared freely, and she’s confident that it’s coming.
Futurism caught up with Elbakyan to hear what’s next. Over email, she explained her vision for the site’s future, her thoughts on copyright law, and more. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The article goes on to report that she had expected copyright law to be corrected long before so much time had passed. In many ways Sci-Hub can be seen as a form of push back against the academic publishing houses which are infamous for abusive practices and pricing. The cost of research, writing, editing, peer-review, and more are all borne by the researchers and their institutions with little beyond distribution borne by the publisher. The big publishing houses then sell access back to the same researchers and institutions at rates that a small and decreasing number can afford.
(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.)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by CRCulver on Wednesday June 10 2015, @12:18AM
Library Genesis was set up after several forebears had been shut down by copyright claims. It was conceived with a distributed architecture: any file uploaded to LibGen is automatically mirrored on a number of websites (not all of which are known publicly). Plus, those contributions are also bundled together with other files into torrents tracked from elsewhere and seeded by third-parties across the internet. Elsevier or its ilk might succeed in shutting down some Library Genesis URLs, but all those "pirated" scientific articles and books are still floating out there, and in short time they will show up on another set of URLs.
One might quibble about sharing of movies, films, and literature because an artist isn't being paid. However, LibGen is in high demand by budding scientists in developing countries who would like to participate in science, but whose institutions do not provide much access to the international scholarly discourse. It's hard to see those students, passion about science, as the bad guys here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @03:10PM
Ah, sort of the "think of the children" argument.
What say you about all the non-scientific stuff they put up too? Poor budding enthusiastic underprivileged scientists need their free manga too?
(Score: 2) by CRCulver on Wednesday June 10 2015, @03:41PM
The e-book section of LibGen is separate from its scientific paper archive and search functionality.
(Though I have no problem with e-book sharing. It's wonderful that we live in an age where one can consume as much art as one desires regardless of one's financial means.)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Wednesday June 10 2015, @12:53AM
I'm not a fan of the pay-wall phenomenon. At the same time perhaps it doesn't affect me as much as the average user since I have access to the papers at work.
But just looking thru the Library Genesis site I can find a massive amount of copyright infringements. They are clearly linking to all thinks readable. So while sharing public papers, articles and reports might be fine sharing complete books and comic-books probably isn't. I'm surprised they have not been sued by Marvel, Dark Horse Comics or some book publisher already, from the search results I can see that they are even hosting the .cbr/.cbz files on their ftp server. I'm fairly certain that all these book publishers are not okay with what is being shared or going on at the site.
So while they might be in the right for trying to breach the pay-wall and doing people without payed access they are also at the same time into shady business and sharing of works they clearly have no right to share.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @01:12AM
So while sharing public papers, articles and reports might be fine sharing complete books and comic-books probably isn't.
Maybe not "fine" according to the current legal system, but that isn't what truly matters.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday June 10 2015, @04:33AM
Seconded. Elsevier is one of the worst academic publishers. They're total parasites. They have some nerve to complain about violations of copyrights that they shouldn't own in the first place.
Academic publishers don't pay for research at all. They don't pay the researchers or the public one damned cent of any fees their paywalls happen to collect. They don't pay for peer review either. They ask researchers to donate time to organize other researchers to do reviews, also on donated time. Then they demand that researchers turn over all copyright to them, for the privilege of being published, and for their own convenience so they don't have to worry about any messy permission seeking should they wish to republish or do anything else with those works after the initial publication. They were never supposed to hold research hostage for ransom money, never supposed to tell researchers that they couldn't hand out copies of their *own* work to interested parties. That was the unwritten part of the understanding in asking that researchers freely hand over copyright, that publishers would not seek to abuse the too strong laws. Everyone knew that total transfer of all rights was asking too much, but could live with the situation and accept the deal to work around the bad, clumsy, and heavy legal requirements, as long as the publishers didn't break trust. To my knowledge, the IEEE has never dared tell published researchers that they couldn't post their own research on the web, if they wanted, despite IEEE owning all copyright.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Wednesday June 10 2015, @01:17AM
So while they might be in the right for trying to breach the pay-wall and doing people without payed access a favor they are also at the same time into shady business and sharing of works they clearly have no right to share -- commercial work with little or no academic value.
I discovered a bit to late that I sort of missed to type a few words here, since there is no edit function and I clicked to fast I have to respond to my own post.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @07:56AM
perhaps it doesn't affect me as much as the average user since I have access to the papers at work.
Must be nice to have a job at the NSA, eh? Not much use to the rest of us. Oh, careful about your own search histories, there in the crystal palace! Not everyone is a Snowden!
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday June 10 2015, @03:26PM
... or you could get a job at a university which in turn subscribe to all these journals and journal collection sites. No need to get nefarious.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @04:30AM
Accuracy?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/28/us-science-cancer-idUSBRE82R12P20120328 [reuters.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @05:58AM
Indeed! See e.g.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australasian_Journal_of_Bone_%26_Joint_Medicine [wikipedia.org] (ads made to look like a real journal without disclosures)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who%27s_Afraid_of_Peer_Review%3F [wikipedia.org] (bogus paper with broken science passing peer review)
Disgusting!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @06:26AM
While I'm sure those fake journals have plenty of crap, the point is that what you find in the "high tier" journals appears to be just more polished crap. Actually the worst afaict (excluding journals that don't even try) for biomed is Science ~2000. I don't know what was going on but those reports are just awful, it is impossible to figure out what anyone did.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 10 2015, @07:17AM
What I found annoying in the past was Google showing their pages for search terms I searched for but then I'm not able to actually see the page containing the search terms.
BMW Germany got punished by Google for doing something like that: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4685750.stm [bbc.co.uk]
But somehow Elsevier etc got away with that.