Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Sci-Hub, which is regularly referred to as the "Pirate Bay of science", faces another setback in a US federal court. After the site's operator failed to respond, the American Chemical Society now requests a default judgment of $4.8 million for alleged copyright infringement. In addition, the publisher wants a broad injunction which would require search engines and ISPs to block the site.
The pirate site, operated by Alexandra Elbakyan, was ordered to pay $15 million in piracy damages to academic publisher Elsevier.
With the ink on this order barely dry, another publisher soon tagged on with a fresh complaint. The American Chemical Society (ACS), a leading source of academic publications in the field of chemistry, also accused Sci-Hub of mass copyright infringement.
[...] "Sci-Hub's unabashed flouting of U.S. Copyright laws merits a strong deterrent. This Court has awarded a copyright holder maximum statutory damages where the defendant's actions were 'clearly willful' and maximum damages were necessary to 'deter similar actors in the future'," they write.
Although the deterrent effect may sound plausible in most cases, another $4.8 million in debt is unlikely to worry Sci-Hub's owner, as she can't pay it off anyway. However, there's also a broad injunction on the table that may be more of a concern.
The requested injunction prohibits Sci-Hub's owner to continue her work on the site. In addition, it also bars a wide range of other service providers from assisting others to access it.
Specifically, it restrains "any Internet search engines, web hosting and Internet service providers, domain name registrars, and domain name registries, to cease facilitating access to any or all domain names and websites through which Defendant Sci-Hub engages in unlawful access to [ACS's works]."
The above suggests that search engines may have to remove the site from their indexes while ISPs could be required to block their users' access to the site as well, which goes quite far.
Source: https://torrentfreak.com/sci-hub-faces-48-million-piracy-damages-and-isp-blocking-170905/
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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
Sci-Hub is a web hydra, not unlike The Pirate Bay:
Sci-Hub is often referred to as the "Pirate Bay of Science," and this description has become more and more apt in recent weeks.
Initially, the comparison was made to illustrate that Sci-Hub is used by researchers to download articles for free, much like the rest of the world uses The Pirate Bay to get free stuff.
There are more parallels though. Increasingly, Sci-Hub has trouble keeping its domain names. Following two injunctions in the US, academic publishers now have court orders to compel domain registrars and registries to suspend Sci-Hub's addresses.
Although there is no such court order for The Pirate Bay, the notorious torrent site also has a long history of domain suspensions. Both sites appear to tackle the problem in a similar manner. They simply ignore all enforcement efforts and bypass them with new domains and other circumvention tools. They have several backup domains in place as well as unsuspendable .onion addresses, which are accessible on the Tor network.
Since late November, a lot of Sci-Hub users have switched to Sci-Hub.bz when other domains were suspended. And, when the .bz domain was targeted a few days ago, they moved to different alternatives. It's a continuous game of Whack-a-Mole that is hard to stop.
Don't forget Library Genesis .
Previously: 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
Documentary puts lens on the open-access movement upending scientific publishing
Jason Schmitt was working at Atlantic Records when the online site Napster disrupted the music industry by making copyrighted songs freely available. Now, the communications and media researcher at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, is pushing for a similar disruption of academic publishing with Paywall, a documentary about the open-access movement that debuts today in a Washington, D.C., theater. "I don't think that it's right that for-profit publishers can make 35%–40% profit margins. The content is provided for them for free by academics," Schmitt, who produced the film, says.
The documentary explores the impact of Sci-Hub, a website that provides pirated versions of paywalled papers for free online, and interviews academics and publishing figures. Schmitt says many large publishers refused to go on camera—although representatives from Science and Nature did—and he is not impressed that several have begun publishing some open-access journals. "Elsevier is as much to open access as McDonald's fast food is to healthy," he says.
Sci-Hub and Library Genesis.
Related:
The Research Pirates of the Dark Web
Wellcome Trust Recommends Free Scientific Journals
Sci-Hub, the Repository of "Infringing" Academic Papers Now Available Via "Telegram"
Research Libraries Announce Boycott of Elsevier Journals Over Open Access
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
Plan S: Radical Open-Access Science Initiative in Europe
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
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 06 2017, @09:15AM (3 children)
I guess this says a lot about how our government views upcoming science students. Gotta make sure they don't know any more than they pay to know.
Who uses Sci-Hub anyway? Researchers!
Of course, industry will have to go outside this country to get kids who are self-motivated to do much more than play videogames.
We are trying to cultivate a bunch of ignoramuses over here... obedient little consumers who do what they are told.
STEM shortgage, my ass. This is like the guy cussing out the short-order chef over where he got cooking lessons. Obviously he isn't all that hungry. Otherwise, he would be trying to teach the chef how to do it right, not fining him several million dollars.
The USA elite won't pay this much attention until some other country's elite have the power to tell our elite that they no longer own stuff that they claim rights to.
(Score: 5, Informative) by lx on Wednesday September 06 2017, @09:55AM (1 child)
Apparently they already have the power.
One of the biggest opponents of open science publication, RELX/Elsevier, is based in London and Amsterdam.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 06 2017, @10:22AM
Certainly both the real pirate nests for centuries.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday September 06 2017, @11:40AM
Great post, but one quibble: "our government". It's hardly ours anymore, its government for big corporations and the rich. The corporatocracy has shown over and over that they want to charge tolls for access to information. To Sci-Hub's advantage, I've heard that winning a judgment is relatively easy. Collecting is the hard part.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 06 2017, @09:16AM (2 children)
Better get ready for a DNS block
(Score: 5, Informative) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday September 06 2017, @11:31AM
You mean the IP address? It is 80.82.77.83 and that IP address is given on the Wikipedia page about Sci-Hub.
Currently, ping (IPv4) from my location shows 104.28.20.155 for sci-hub.bz, but if you point a browser to that IP address, you get this error message from Cloudflare that direct IP access isn't allowed. http://80.82.77.83 [80.82.77.83] works.
(Score: 4, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday September 06 2017, @11:50AM
Twitter account [twitter.com] up-right corner, there's an address - Elsevier et all, smell it and cry me a river, it's the only bookmark in my Tor-browser.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by xhedit on Wednesday September 06 2017, @11:37AM (1 child)
however many years and court cases later, pirate bay is still around. doubt she cares about US courts at all.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Wednesday September 06 2017, @12:46PM
In Sweden perhaps, but the USA legal system is insanely unfair against those who are not obscenely wealthy and extremely vindictive over copyright law.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 06 2017, @11:37AM
What has been the decrease in profits?
These organizations make most of their money from institutional subscriptions, member dues, and page charges as far as I know. The case for them losing potential customers is an even harder one to make than it is for games and movies.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 06 2017, @11:54AM
How does this lawsuit advance their mission?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 06 2017, @12:29PM
Maybe it's time for an ever expanding sectioned torrent, by discipline. I mean how big could a few million PDF's be? couple hundred gigs?