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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

After losing a lawsuit [sciencemag.org] 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 [chemistryworld.com] in June against Sci-Hub [sci-hub.cc], 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 [github.com] 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 [wikipedia.org] hosts millions of unpaywalled full academic papers.

Previously: Elsevier Cracks Down on "Pirate" Science Search Engines [soylentnews.org]
The Research Pirates of the Dark Web [soylentnews.org]
Sci-Hub, the Repository of "Infringing" Academic Papers Now Available Via "Telegram" [soylentnews.org]
Elsevier Wants $15 Million Piracy Damages from Sci-Hub and Libgen [soylentnews.org]
US Court Grants Elsevier Millions in Damages From Sci-Hub [soylentnews.org]
Sci-Hub Faces $4.8 Million Piracy Damages and ISP Blocking [soylentnews.org]

Original Submission