Sci-Hub Pledges Open Source & AI Alongside Crypto Donation Drive
Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan has launched a donation drive to ensure the operations and development of the popular academic research platform. For safety reasons, donations can only be made in cryptocurrencies but the pledges include a drive to open source the project and the introduction of artificial intelligence to discover new hypotheses.
[...] A new campaign launched by Elbakyan on Saturday hopes to encourage people to contribute to the site's future, promising "dramatic improvements" over the next few years in return.
In addition to offering enhanced search features and a mobile app, Sci-Hub is pledging developments that include the open sourcing of the project. Also of interest is the pledge to introduce an artificial intelligence component that should make better use of the masses of knowledge hosted by Sci-Hub.
"Sci-Hub engine will [be] powered by artificial intelligence. Neural Networks will read scientific texts, extract ideas and make inferences and discover new hypotheses," Elbakyan reveals.
The overall goal of the next few years is to boost content availability too, expanding from hosting "the majority of research articles" available today to include "any scientific document ever published."
Related: 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
Swedish ISP Punishes Elsevier for Forcing It to Block Sci-Hub by Also Blocking Elsevier
Library Genesis Seeding Project Helps to Decentralize Archive of Scientific Knowledge
Scientists to be Heard in High-Profile Publisher Lawsuit Against Sci-Hub in India
Related Stories
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
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
Despite two lost legal battles in the US, domain name seizures, and millions of dollars in damage claims, Sci-Hub continues to offer unauthorized access to academic papers. The site's founder says that she would rather operate legally, but copyright gets in the way. Sci-Hub is not the problem she argues, it's a solution, something many academics appear to agree with.
Sci-Hub has often been referred to as "The Pirate Bay of Science," but that description really sells the site short.
While both sites are helping the public to access copyrighted content without permission, Sci-Hub has also become a crucial tool that arguably helps the progress of science.
The site allows researchers to bypass expensive paywalls so they can read articles written by their fellow colleagues. The information in these 'pirated' articles is then used to provide the foundation for future research.
What the site does is illegal, according to the law, but Sci-Hub is praised by thousands of researchers and academics around the world. In particular, those who don't have direct access to the expensive journals but aspire to excel in their academic field.
Source: https://torrentfreak.com/sci-hub-proves-that-piracy-can-be-dangerously-useful-180804/
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
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.
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: 2, Flamebait) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday August 15 2021, @05:42PM (14 children)
but I'm afraid to say this has all the hallmarks of a con.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 15 2021, @06:36PM
Yep. Note the weasel words "academic research platform". Bullshit - this is a workaround for the inability for legislators for fix the broken science publishing model. No more, no less.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Sunday August 15 2021, @07:26PM (12 children)
It does seem to have all the current cool buzzwords attached to it at least. Add to it that she has already proven over the years that she is well beyond the reach of law (and/or copyright-) enforcement. I really do like the idea or concept of the platform in general but at the same time have to admit that it seems to take certain legal liberties, like them or approve of them or not but they are still there.
Considering that various owners and holders doesn't appear to approve of what they are currently doing. What will be the status of the products of this "artificial intelligence" and "neural network" operation? As it currently stands there are those that want to say that Sci-Hub is stealing papers, books and etc and if it will then use that as a basis for their research? What is the outcome of the new product? Secondly who will create it?
In some regard it would be somewhat amusing if it actually worked. They would find some super useful hypotheses or idea and then want to commercialize it and can't cause well it was created the way it was and based on data it shouldn't have.
That said as noted the con factor is strong. Get lots of bitcoin, do something (or nothing) and then claim it doesn't work. To bad. Perhaps all the papers (and other things available) are not properly formatted for the neutral network etc. Lots of papers are just not formatted in a way that makes it useful for anything but reading, and sometimes not even for that really.
As an example, lots of companies now allow you to upload a CV (or similar) and it takes data from it and fills out their database for you. That shit never works out or comes out correctly. The AI or neural network is just to stupid to do anything with it unless you have formatted it according to their specifications and if you are going to do that then you might as well just add it yourself manually.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 15 2021, @07:38PM
Anti-cryptocurrency slaves are pitiful. As if people couldn't take the money and run with your precious JewBucks.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by sgleysti on Sunday August 15 2021, @08:11PM (5 children)
If you click the link and read the Q&A with Alexandra, she explains that donations are in cryptocurrency because paypal kept freezing accounts she would use for donations. The only other buzzwordy thing in the list is AI, regarding which I remain skeptical.
The other improvements seem reasonable, modulo some strong wording:
Disclaimer: Alexandra Elbakyan is the only person I'd list as a personal hero, and I have donated to Sci-Hub via bitcoin.
Peeved rant: I have a background in numerical computing, with a focus in nonlinear optimization, and it pains me that a lot of job descriptions in this field only talk about AI and machine learning now. The buzzwords have taken over. Standard methods are still incredibly powerful and useful when appropriately applied, and they continue to have wide application. I regard modern AI as statistical classifiers "tuned" by large data sets.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 15 2021, @08:32PM
If the "AI" features do materialize, Sci-Hub could potentially slam something like Meta [wikipedia.org] into the ground. Although "discovering new hypotheses" goes far beyond what Meta tries to do.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by legont on Sunday August 15 2021, @08:58PM (1 child)
She is my hero too. I worked in publishing when she alone have done what our whole nonprofit bloody rich joint could not.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 15 2021, @10:15PM
Kazakhstan's second greatest export after Borat?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday August 16 2021, @12:58AM
I list Aaron Swartz as another hero.
What I find so infuriating is that IP law is supposed to work for the little person, but it has successfully been turned on its head. For decades, IP law has been the chief enabler of knowledge hoarding and access tolls. It's absolutely ridiculous that an academic publisher asks $30 for a 10 page scientific article, and passes on zero of that to the authors. Additional insult is heaped upon us by their weak justifications that are grossly exaggerated when not flat wrong. They do not help fund the research. They don't review the research either, that work gets farmed out to more unpaid volunteers. The editors and organizers too are likely to be unpaid volunteers, doing the work as part of their job in academia. They scarcely even do the librarian work of preserving, indexing, and most of all, making available. So what do they do? Get the material printed, that's about all. And print media is obsolete now. If academic publishers think I want to hand type in some source code in a journal article that is available only in a print edition, to see for myself the results, they are very much mistaken. Just try to get hold of some obscure work published before 1990. The older it is, the more likely it'll be simply unavailable. Lot of stuff from the 1980s might well be computerized, and some things from the 1970s, but older than that, it was pretty much exclusively done up in a typewriter, and won't have been scanned and OCRed yet. People have been working to change that, but progress is slow, greatly hindered by copyright law. What should be possible is downloading a torrent containing every issue that some academic journal ever published. Shouldn't be more than a few gigabytes, taking only a few minutes to download. But no can do. Academic publishers are straight up useless parasites and thieves. They've tried to gaslight the entire scientific community-- they know they're full of crap.
Swartz was the victim of an overzealous prosecutor throwing the book at him. Probably not a good idea, but I seriously wonder if another group should be formed to jailbreak (an actual, physical jailbreaking, not a hack into an iPhone) individuals who end up imprisoned for having done nothing but enable more copying. The law is notorious about being extremely reluctant to free the wrongfully convicted and imprisoned, because they are more concerned about their own appearances than justice. The US is especially prison happy. Considering what happened to Dmitry Sklyarov when he visited the US, I strongly advise Ms. Elbakyan not to visit, until such time as the IP regime is majorly reformed and transformed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @06:45AM
a couple of points:
why would you need funds to make something open source?
you just add the desired license to the archive, and put it in a public repository somewhere. it takes ten minutes if you've never done it before, but know how to use a forum.
the people behind arXiv have been doing automated sifting through data etc for quite some time, and they also have a lot of articles (most in plain text).
that's a serious research team with quite some brainpower.
and yet they're not claiming to use AI for new scientific discoveries. I specifically asked Paul Ginsparg this, because in his talk he mentioned a posteriori examinations of breakthrough papers (they can be seen as "papers from field A using a lot of terminology from field B, showing previously unknown connections). And he didn't seem like a modest guy.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 15 2021, @10:31PM (4 children)
They can't afford to shut Sci-Hub down now. Too many of the articles published in the legal "for profit" journals now explicitly reference sci-hub papers in their citations.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @04:25AM (3 children)
It's might be funny, but it's also true.
https://torrentfreak.com/uk-police-warn-students-not-to-use-sci-hub-publishers-promote-it-210322/ [torrentfreak.com]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Monday August 16 2021, @11:50AM (1 child)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @12:50PM
That might be true, but it's hardly Sci-Hub's fault if authors cite a Sci-Hub location rather than a document name.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 16 2021, @01:06PM
Ok, I can't make that google scholar link work. I think rehash is stripping the parameters from it. If you go to the torrentfreak page it is about in the middle, just above a screenshot that shows the results. It works from there.