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CloudFlare Can Be Ordered To Disclose Science Piracy Website Owner Details (thestack.com)

Posted by msmash on from the law-strikes dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A New York judge has ruled that CDN provider Cloudflare can be compelled to disclose customer details for the domains libgen.io and bookfi.org, both of which are alleged to provide pirated access to scientific and technical papers, infringing the rights of controversial academic publisher Elsevier. Judge Robert Sweet ruled 'The evidence set forth...demonstrates that Elsevier (publisher who filed the lawsuit) is unable to identify the operators of libgen.org or bookfi.org, or the true location of the computer servers upon which those websites are hosted, absent the ability to take discovery from Cloudflare.' Sweet's ruling refers to 'absent identifying information' necessitating an injunction for Cloudflare to surrender details intended to begin an investigative financial trail to the domain registrants. This information could have been provided by British company TLD Registrar Solutions, who registered libgen.org in 2012 -- and hardly seems likely to retrench under pressure, given the oft-criticised transparency of legal process between the U.S. and the United Kingdom. ICANN and WHOIS also seem like obvious first points of enquiry (however ICANN's secession from control by the United States government at the end of September may have complicated using it as a legal resource), but apparently, neither can help.

4 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I too thank Elsevier for this new information. I already use sci-hub for my professional work because it's better than my uni library's services. I found out about it from a similar news article a while ago.

    Where should OneHundredAndTen and I be looking to be aware of these kind of resources? I don't have the energy or inclination to stick it to the Man, I just read lots of scientific articles for my work. So if I got out more... or... less, what else do I need to know to do my science efficiently and add to the world's knowledge? Where do I go when these websites stop functioning to find their replacement?

  2. As a scientist... by blind+biker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't even understand what "science piracy" might mean. The whole reason for scientific work to exist, is to be disseminated. Paywalled scientific journals are exactly the antithesis of what science is, which is openness, exposure, universal access.

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    1. Re:As a scientist... by ChromeAeonium · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Also a scientist; I say it's not even piracy. Piracy is downloading something you didn't pay for. If I download, for example, the new Star Wars VII or Civ 6, that would be piracy, because I would be getting something that someone else made, with their money, with the intention of making a return on that investment, without paying a fair price for it.

      On the other hand, if you download something that was made at a public institution, build and run with public funds, by a group in some part funded by public money grants, than that is not stealing; that is getting what you are owed. Demanding that someone should have to give $39.99 to some leech-weasel publishing company to get access to something they already paid for is the real piracy going on here. Elsevier and their ilk are stealing from the public.

      Science needs to be open to everyone, not just those of us lucky enough to have institutional access (and hell, where I am, I don't even have easy access to all years for all journals, stupid as that is). I've no sympathy whatsoever here for them, and I'd bet they don't even lose money anyway when some curious individuals 'pirate' scientific articles, because most people aren't going to pay $40 for something that may or may not be pertinent to what they want to know. I'm not at all one of those people who rejects the idea of copyright and IP in general, not at all, but Elsevier and the rest of them are thieves, and they can take their copyright and shove it up their ass.

      If science piracy is giving the public access to what they are entitled to and supporting the principle of scientific openness for all people, than long live science piracy.

  3. Re:Thanks by Grishnakh · · Score: 3, Informative

    You're missing the OP's point, which is that this is an example of the Streisand Effect. Many people may not be that actively interested in reading scientific papers, but then they read articles like this about Elsevier going after these "pirates", and look into the issue, decide that Elsevier's actions and monopolization of the industry are abhorrent, so they go to the pirate sites and start reading, then they tell their friends all about it, and it snowballs.

    We've seen this over and over and over on the internet: when some powerful interest wants to shut something down they don't like, it just brings attention to it and makes it even more popular.