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US Court Grants ISPs and Search Engine Blockade of Sci-Hub (torrentfreak.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the decline-of-the-arts-and-sciences dept.

Sci-Hub, a scientific research piracy site home to thousands of research papers, has suffered another blow in a U.S. federal court. According to TorrentFreak, "The American Chemical Society has won a default judgment of $4.8 million for alleged copyright infringement against the site. In addition, the publisher was granted an unprecedented injunction which requires search engines and ISPs to block the platform." This comes after a $15 million fine was imposed on Sci-Hub by a New York federal judge earlier this year. From the report: Just before the weekend, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema issued a final decision which is a clear win for ACS. The publisher was awarded the maximum statutory damages of $4.8 million for 32 infringing works, as well as a permanent injunction. The injunction is not limited to domain name registrars and hosting companies, but expands to search engines, ISPs and hosting companies too, who can be ordered to stop linking to or offering services to Sci-Hub. The injunction means that Internet providers, such as Comcast, can be requested to block users from accessing Sci-Hub. That's a big deal since pirate site blockades are not common in the United States. The same is true for search engine blocking of copyright-infringing sites.

"Ordered that any person or entity in active concert or participation with Defendant Sci-Hub and with notice of the injunction, including any Internet search engines, web hosting and Internet service providers, domain name registrars, and domain name registries, cease facilitating access to any or all domain names and websites through which Sci-Hub engages in unlawful access to, use, reproduction, and distribution of ACS's trademarks or copyrighted works," the injunction reads.

32 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. stupid by Rockoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So the only people that cant freely benefit from these U.S. science papers are U.S. citizens.

    --
    "His name was James Damore."
    1. Re:stupid by msauve · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Even worse. Rather than direct action on the offending party, this ruling assumes to force the cost of enforcement onto innocent third parties.

      That should be, at a bare minimum, an unconstitutional 5th Amendment "taking."

      And F the application of "taking" to only real property. It's extremely disingenuous to try to apply that to a case involving intellectual property.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    2. Re:stupid by Frobnicator · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's more than that. The judge's demand is worthless and is unlawful.

      Honestly the judge should know better. He can write all he wants about "Internet search engines, web hosting and Internet service providers, domain name registrars, and domain name registries" in his court order. But if they were not part of the suit, they cannot be part of the order.

      Of course, the judge can bring them in as new named parties, but by doing so he'll have to face the lawyers from all those companies. His order will need to stand scrutiny and appeals from the legal teams of many of the biggest companies in the world.

      That part of the order should just be ignored for now. It is illegal, and if the court attempts to enforce it, they can find themselves at the wrong end of a bar review for it.

      --
      //TODO: Think of witty sig statement
    3. Re:stupid by mysidia · · Score: 2

      But if they were not part of the suit, they cannot be part of the order.

      That is not true; However, the order is too vague to understand who is being required to act, and exactly what step they are being ordered to take.

      Depending on your interpretation of the order, they may be ordering something that is technically impossible for ISPs to do, Or they might be making an order that only applies to those doing business with Sci-Hub directly....

      "In Active concert or participation with defendant" --- does not include merely routing packets that might somehow be associated with the defendant.

      Furthermore: cease facilitating access to any or all domain names and websites through which Sci-Hub engages in unlawful access to, use, reproduction, and distribution of ACS's trademarks or copyrighted works

      ISPs have no way of knowing what domain names SciHub engages in unlawful access, etc,
        with. Furthermore, ISPs have no way of knowing what domain names IP traffic are associated with, and to the degree they provide any DNS services typically have no capability to handle any destination domain differently than any other destination domain, thus there is no way to implement the order.

    4. Re:stupid by zifn4b · · Score: 2

      Even worse. Rather than direct action on the offending party, this ruling assumes to force the cost of enforcement onto innocent third parties.

      The offending party is outside of US Jurisdiction. They can't touch her and I seriously doubt Putin would extradite her.

      --
      We'll make great pets
  2. MMMM initial reaction by oldgraybeard · · Score: 2

    Bite Me! do these individuals know how the internet works?

    I know, I am just an old curmudgeon ;)

    1. Re:MMMM initial reaction by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

      Yes, of course. Someone will email clandestine links to these papers, which will install malware, which will add your computer to a botnet, which will email out clandestine links to these papers.

    2. Re:MMMM initial reaction by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Free speech is the freedom for YOU to speak. It doesn't mean that everyone else has to give you everything they write for free.

  3. Try the library by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

    It's a great place to get access to all sorts of scientific journals.

    1. Re:Try the library by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Try the library

      Have you ever actually done that?

      As an academic researcher, no single library can afford even a quarter of the journals a researcher might need in their field.

      Do you know what grad students do to get their degree? Cheat. They use abstracts and hope nobody notices or they go to places like above and get the information they need illegally.

      The problem has only become worse as journals increase their rates, their number, and universities providing fewer subscriptions every year.

      It's as if the only people that post on higher-education articles either have their hand in the pot or are uneducated themselves.

    2. Re:Try the library by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Informative

      You go to a research computer, and access scientific journals online. A decent size library will have subscriptions.

    3. Re:Try the library by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 4, Informative

      Try the library ... It's a great place to get access to all sorts of scientific journals.

      I was looking for just one recent article in Science recently.

      I tried the libraries - all that I could reach without cutting work. (I work at a startup, with weird and extended hours, which eliminates, for example, those at Stanford U that are accessible to non-students).

      Nobody had budgeted for the service, so the paper wasn't available.

      --
      Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
    4. Re:Try the library by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You go to a research computer, and access scientific journals online. A decent size library will have subscriptions.

      And what they don’t have, you can get through intra library loan.

      Good luck with that. Here's an example of how it works in the real world: At the start of the year I was six months deep into a big project when a very large study came out on the same subject. Naturally I needed a copy or my work would be sunk.

      Neither of my two universities had a copy and none were available to loan.

      Sometimes you can contact authors and get a copy, maybe a pre-edit one, but not in this case. It was a very-large group effort and the rights were not sufficient for any one person to give edit copies of the whole thing.

      Four months later it landed on rental and purchase services. 24 hour access for 48 dollars. It was 300 pages long so that's a no. 120 dollars for purchase. It even was a physical copy, bound and fulfilled through amazon for some reason. But my budget does not allow for 120 dollar purchases for one citation when I'm expected to have closer to a hundred.

      So I went to sci hub and downloaded it for nothing. They even had the graphs in full-color, something the hardcopy did not have, and an addendum for all the data and sources used.

      Science is not some trivially easy or quick activity, but the people that do it must make it look easy and do their work quickly or be surpassed. I really don't understand why people make one-line comments here pretending to have first-hand knowledge of the process.

    5. Re:Try the library by interkin3tic · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Many journals are cutting the print editions. It's kind of weird they lasted as long as they did. Many resources aren't available in the print version anyway. Online supplementary figures are very common, movies and programs are obviously not printable, and some journals are even putting additional text in "Supplementary" sections. Which makes no sense whatsoever in the online-only versions.

      Also, you're assuming libraries have full access, which is nonsense. Why would journals give all access to public libraries?

      Anyway, our tax dollars pay for the research. Researchers like those that access most of the journal articles volunteer time both in writing and in reviewing the research papers. Why the fuck shouldn't researchers be able to access the papers? The internet has made most of the useful functions of for-profit science journals obsolete, they're almost entirely parasitic now. There's no function they serve that outweighs researchers being able to access papers at our convenience.

    6. Re:Try the library by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 5, Informative

      You go to a research computer, and access scientific journals online. A decent size library will have subscriptions.

      And what they don't have, you can get through intra library loan.

      Have you ever tried that one? When I was looking at getting some papers that way, I was told it'd be a 6 week wait (for electronic copies) if you're lucky and things go fast. You are are dependent on a library accepting your request, and overall the system seems to be designed with the assumption that nobody using it might actually have any need for any information in a timely manner. (The one time I did use it, it was for something I wanted to read for my own reasons, and I would not have been able to check its status--basically, the only thing I'd get is notice of when it came in. I don't even know if there is a fail state--or if my request would linger in the system until the heat death of the universe if nobody accepted it.)

      ACS could do a lot by having access to the papers it owns be cheap or even free to members--and making sure students who could join are aware of this particular benefit.

    7. Re: Try the library by Reverend+Green · · Score: 2

      No you don't.

    8. Re:Try the library by SumDog · · Score: 2

      I log into both my undergrand and graduate libraries every few months to keep my account active. Most universities let graduated alumni have access for life.

    9. Re:Try the library by Raisey-raison · · Score: 3, Informative

      Speaking from experience many academic libraries cannot afford the extortionate fees charged by the journals. As far as community libraries go, I recently went into one and asked them if I could access Nature or Science and they laughed at me. And it was the largest community library for about 10 miles.

      Try going to community college and trying to write a paper that relies on articles from journals that it does not subscribe to. Even Harvard says it cannot afford the fees. It's a classic case of abuse of IP. https://www.theguardian.com/sc...

      The problem is only getting worse. And if you are not affiliated with an academic institution you are screwed. Some university libraries won't even let in members of the public and you invariably need a university login to use the computers if you are able to freely enter. http://www.dailytexanonline.co...

      The general price of consumer goods went up by 73 percent between 1986 and 2004, but the price of serials increased by 273 percent, according to Tufts University. Congress gets big campaign contributions from the publishers so there is no realistic option for those who want to access research they already largely payed for via taxes. Unless you come with a realistic alternative you cant criticize sci-hub.

  4. KnOwledge by MrKaos · · Score: 2

    Shouldn't we be sharing knowledge so that as many people as possible can innovate? If you want to profit from an idea, that's what a patent is for.

    Doesn't availability and accessibility increase the utility of the knowledge? Am I missing something here?

    Isn't this one of the main reasons the internet was invented? To share knowledge.

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    1. Re:KnOwledge by GodWasAnAlien · · Score: 3, Informative

      Before Science, discoveries where kept private as secret property for power and profit.

      That was called Alchemy. As "Intellectual property" monopolies continue to expand, we will naturally continue to regress towards a similar state of stagnation relative to our potential.

  5. tor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sci-hub is on tor

    scihub22266oqcxt.onion

    So I guess this court action will result in a whole new group of people getting on tor.

  6. I fought the law and the law won by Beeftopia · · Score: 2

    The law is written by politicians and it's backed by force. Just because you don't think it's right doesn't mean squat. Run afoul of it and you will likely be sanctioned, especially when money is at stake and your opponents have deep pockets. Aaron Swartz realized this too late, when the law credibly threatened to put him in jail for decades, and he decided end his existence on his own terms instead.

    Until you can convince a politician that you can personally benefit him, those that can (lobbyists - professional persuaders), and those that can bring money and votes to his benefit, he's not going to pay you a lick of attention. And seriously, how many outside of the academic community care about this? A handful of angry post-baccalaureates sure isn't going to persuade any pol to switch sides.

    It's absurd that taxpayer funded research, done ostensibly for the advancement of society, is not available publicly. But it's the law. And until you can change the law, you're pissing into the dark. And somewhere in the dark is an electrified fence.

    Try and change the law. But follow it until you can change it, cause brother, it got teeth. And it don't care what you think of it.

    1. Re:I FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE LAW WON by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      What's the point of copy/pasting a comment made a half hour earlier a few threads down?

    2. Re:I fought the law and the law won by whyyisthissohard · · Score: 2

      THE LAW IS THE LAW, RULES ARE RULES

      What is your point? "Follow the law no matter what even if it's wrong?" That seems like a big jump from "don't get caught breaking it". The law is applied discretionarily and always has been and always will be. You're just running your mouth for no reason. Let me give some better advice: Break bad laws every single time you think you can get away with it and keep at it. Our society is deeply corrupt and we need to do something about it. Democracy has been broken. You will need to take radical steps to fix it.

  7. Both the summary and article are simply wrong by SlaveToTheGrind · · Score: 5, Informative

    For all the reasons I explained in my post when the magistrate judge's decision came out, this order likely cannot apply to ISPs, search engines, etc., because they weren't involved in the lawsuit (i.e., didn't have their proverbial day in court), and aren't in "active concert or participation" with Sci-Hub.

    Sure enough, the actual decision here says: "ORDERED that any person or entity in active concert or participation with Defendant Sci-Hub and with notice of the injunction, including [basically every player involved in providing internet services], cease facilitating access...."

    This is basically like saying "everyone to whom the injunction applies must obey it (if ACS can prove they knew about it)," which pretty much says nothing.

    First, no individual ISP, search provider, DNS provider, etc. etc. is obligated to do anything until ACS provides them with legal notice of the injunction or otherwise proves they actually saw it (ACS can't just say "Your Honor, it's been all over the news -- they HAD to have heard about it").

    Second, ACS would have to show that the party was not just agnostically providing access to / search results for / DNS records for / etc., Sci-Hub just like any other website, but that the party was actually colluding with Sci-Hub. ACS would be very unlikely to be able to do this in my view, and it would be expensive for them to try (some of the smaller players might just fold to avoid the bother, but the larger ones are unlikely to want to set a precedent of just rolling over and implying they're subject to a court order in a case to which they were not a party and had no opportunity to defend their interests).

    In short, any blocking would be strictly voluntary, and I'd be fairly surprised if we see a whole lot of that.

    1. Re:Both the summary and article are simply wrong by cdogg4ya · · Score: 2

      Mod this up! It would be a tremendous over-reach by the judicial to make it such that unrelated parties to the action would have to take action that would cost time and money to support a third party judgement.

  8. Something Stinks... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yet many of the same scientists and the same university libraries that decry the barriers to access of the pay-to-play journals still feed the monster. Yes, yes, "publish or parish", and the library "must" carry these subscriptions. Or something like that.

    The key will be to establish "open source" peer-reviewed journals that are backed by the biggest names in science and the major universities. That at this point it hasn't happened makes me think that the biggest names in science and the major universities like the way things are now...

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re:Something Stinks... by redalertbulb · · Score: 3, Funny

      "publish or parish" Happens all the time. I know plenty of researchers who have left academia to pursue a career in the church.

  9. Let the mirroring commence! by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 2

    Time for a game of whack-a-website!

  10. Next time Sen. Cornyn introduces the bill, email by raymorris · · Score: 4, Informative

    Every few years Senator Cornyn (R Texas) introduces a bill requiring federally funded research to be made available to freely online. Every few years, the fine folks who post on Slashdot ignore the bill, as does everyone else other than the publishers who oppose it. Every few years the bill dies with no broad support from the public.

    Next time Senator Cornyn introduces the bill, please send a quick email or phone call to your senators and house reps, supporting the bill. Thanks.

  11. The search engine blockade shouldn't matter by CustomSolvers2 · · Score: 2

    All the people interested in technical papers and willing to rely on a let's say not official source like this do already know about Sci-Hub. The site does have its own search functionality and, in principle, there is no need to rely on search engines or in any other external resource to browse through their own information.

    On the other hand, that blockade might affect Sci-Hub in case they didn't develop their own search and relied on an existing search-engine, what is a surprisingly common approach. Bear in mind that most of websites including a relevant number of contents use databases which, basically, are search engines. Even if you want to make things really cheap, simple and quick, you could build a simple form directly communicating with the in-built search engine of the given database (don't forget about SQL injection!!!).

    Renouncing to (or, at least, blindly trusting for-profit companies, whose businesses aren't precisely objectivity and technical correctness, to make the right decisions) privacy, reliability or similar and getting something on exchange might be justifiable. Performing these actions by default and getting even worse results seems quite stupid. No idea what Sci-Hub has done on this front, but there are quite a few sites performing such nonsensical actions; and I am not just talking about small websites where searching is a secondary concern. It is almost scary how much power certain companies/data sources have got mostly through laziness and undeserved blind trust.

    --
    Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
  12. Re:Who's gonna pay for it? by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 2

    Are you kidding? The Us--public and private--have the same parasitic administration issues that the K12s system does, with the added issues caused by students who typically don't quite realize that loans are not free money--so they'll decide hey, let's go to the more expensive school because its students all get 'free' ponies (and not that other one which spends it money on research & quality instruction) and then they'll be wondering why the fuck they've got so much debt afterwards.

    Plus, not all the Us are particularly research-oriented, and the heavily research-oriented ones are actually pretty sucky places to go as a student--students are annoying distractions from doing research there. (I went to one nicely in the middle...and will generally not bother sticking around if the offer seems too good, because I don't want to bother trying to figure out what's off.)

    'Publish or perish' just amplifies all the problems involved here, too, because it acts to punish those in academia who want to get their research done to the point where applications are developed, unless they're in one of the handful of fields where you reach that part as part of the paper. Stop the system from only caring that you're publishing lots of papers, even if the research quality is shit. You want the importance placed on the quality and importance of the papers--right now? It doesn't matter if that one paper you published is top-notch work and going to be cited in your field's textbooks, it's only one paper, and they'd rather have the person who has published lots of eminently forgettable low-quality papers.

    Until this is fixed? It will not matter one infinitely small bit how much money is getting poured into the system. Damn near nobody is able to invest the time and effort required--more money, therefore, will simply go to generating more papers, still generally leaving developing applications to business.