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Judge Recommends ISP and Search Engine Blocking of Sci-Hub in the US (torrentfreak.com)
Sci-Hub, which is regularly referred to as the "Pirate Bay of Science," faces one of the strongest anti-piracy injunctions we have seen in the US to date, reports TorrentFreak. From the article: Earlier this year the American Chemical Society (ACS), a leading source of academic publications in the field of chemistry, filed a lawsuit against Sci-Hub and its operator Alexandra Elbakyan. Sci-Hub was made aware of the legal proceedings but did not appear in court. As a result, a default was entered against the site. In addition to millions of dollars in damages, ACS also requested third-party Internet intermediaries to take action against the site. While the request is rather unprecedented for the US, as it includes search engine and ISP blocking, Magistrate Judge John Anderson has included these measures in his recommendations. Judge Anderson agrees that Sci-Hub is guilty of copyright and trademark infringement. In addition to $4,800,000 in statutory damages, he recommends a broad injunction that would require search engines, ISPs, domain registrars and other services to block Sci-Hub's domain names. If the U.S. District Court Judge adopts this recommendation, it would mean that Internet providers such as Comcast could be ordered to block users from accessing Sci-Hub.
But publicly funded research should be available to the public.
Public-funding of science means the scientific output is public property. Outfits like Nature have been raking it in charging people outrageous subscriptions to access data that in vast majority of cases is connected/paid/dependent on public monies. That racket cannot last forever.
And when it comes to copyright, when does it stop with science? Is a classic like On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox royalty-free given it was published in 1964? Does Alain Aspect owe the Bell estate royalties? This is all so much horseshit.
Usually what happens ... If the defendant doesn't show up ... to contest the order that has been presented by the plaintiff ... [the judge] may be inclined to use the plaintiff's proposed order and enter it as a default judgment
Also: The site was created by a Kazakhstani graduate student, is hosted in St. Petersburg, Russia, and has used domain name registrars in various countries.
As I understand it: Under US law, if you contact a court to contest jurisdiction, you've conceded that the court has jurisdiction if it decides that it does. So there isn't a good way for someone out of a court's jurisdiction to contest jurisdiction up front. This lets plaintiffs go court shopping (for courts that are cheap for them and expensive for their defendants and likely to rule in their favor if the case goes to trial) and get unconscionable default judgements if a defendant protects his/her rights by declining to appear or correspond with the court. Then it's up to the defendant to fight off attempts to enforce the execution of the judgement.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Aaron Swartz did not die just to have this still happen.
Only privately funded research should be allowed to be concealed from the public in this manner. Its their research and their knowledge so to speak, let them do with it as they please.
But publicly funded research is expected to be available in the public domain.
As I understand it: Under US law, if you contact a court to contest jurisdiction, you've conceded that the court has jurisdiction if it decides that it does. So there isn't a good way for someone out of a court's jurisdiction to contest jurisdiction up front. This lets plaintiffs go court shopping (for courts that are cheap for them and expensive for their defendants and likely to rule in their favor if the case goes to trial) and get unconscionable default judgements if a defendant protects his/her rights by declining to appear or correspond with the court. Then it's up to the defendant to fight off attempts to enforce the execution of the judgement.
That is my understanding as well. However, there is a wrinkle here and that is in order for the remedy to be executed, ACS is going to have to compel DNS registries and ISP's to comply with the order and that's where it's going to get weird. The parties being compelled can claim to not be parties to the case which they are not and therefore there are no grounds to compel them to do what ACS is asking. ACS then has no other recourse but to file a motion to be granted a hearing to present the Motion to Compel to yet another judge to make the case for the judge to issue an order directly to the opposing parties. If the hearing is granted, the opposing parties WILL show up with some very high caliber legal representation to contest the Motion to Compel. I think either one of two things will happen 1) ACS will get sent home packing with a useless order the is unenforceable or 2) It will go all the way to Supreme Court. ACS will be fighting with for example Comcast and AT&T at this point not SciHub. It is all rather silly.
We'll make great pets
If you want to read a book, you have to buy it, not steal it.
Not at the public library but you young whippersnappers wouldn't know what that is now would you?
We'll make great pets
Sci-Hub was made aware of the legal proceedings but did not appear in court.
That's your answer right there.
Sci-Hub was stupid.
Surely less than you. Sci-Hub has no relation at all with the US other than being sued there.
Why should Sci-Hub give a rat ass about it and appear in such court to just be harased by the US suers and their bullies?
If you still think they should, good luck when you show in a court when sued in NK, SA, Iran. Ffor whatever infringment they find you being a nuissance.
Luckily, these are scientists, they know how easy it is to circumvent those laughable measures.
>That applies to YOUR papers. If your employer paid you to sit in their office and use their computer to write something for their use about their research, it may be their paper. Your right would be getting the pay check.
I am talking loosely about the papers I have authored. Yes my employer pays me to sit in an office and do stuff. They also agreed to let me (and indeed encouraged me) to submit papers to journals to describe results. The reason for submitting to journals is to make the information available.
Having those papers then locked behind extremely expensive paywalls is counter to the interests of the company who paid for it, the authors who did the work and wrote it, the unpaid reviewers who checked it and the people who would like to read it. We are moderately picky about picking journals that have open access but there are no company imposed rules concerning that.
If the paper is also available through scihub, then the interests of all those people are better met.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.