
US court grants Elsevier millions in damages from Sci-Hub - merraksh
http://www.nature.com/news/us-court-grants-elsevier-millions-in-damages-from-sci-hub-1.22196
======
pmyteh
"Sci-Hub does not add any value to the scholarly community. It neither fosters
scientific advancement nor does it value researchers’ achievements."

Well, that's bollocks. Obviating the need to use seven-click uncookied login
systems adds value to the scholarly community in itself. And that's just for
those whose universities _already_ pay for the journal.

Fuck Elsevier and its trade associations.

~~~
charlesdm
It's a judgement they will never be able to collect on. I honestly don't
understand why they'd bother probably spending $100k in legal fees to get this
judgement, but hey, who needs common sense when you can sue?!

~~~
intended
extradition options, I am guessing.

Plus someone probably now has the ability to stall their accounts or
transactions which travel through US jurisdictions.

~~~
charlesdm
Countries don't generally extradite their own citizens though, regardless of
the claim.

Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through. Yes, they can possibly get
certain accounts blocked, but don't they have anything else to do?

~~~
celticninja
Ummmm, yes they do, unfortunately.

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droithomme
The article states that the judgement is regarding copyright infringement on
100 articles and the damages awarded are $15 million.

It also notes that 28 million articles have been downloaded, so perhaps the
true damages according to law, if all downloads were considered, should be
28e6*15e6/100 = $4.2 trillion.

I wonder, how many of the 100 articles, or the 28 million for that matter,
were written by staff at Elsevier? Well the number is zero articles of course.
Then we might ask, how many of the 100 articles or the 28 million articles
were written by anyone for whom Elsevier financially compensated? Again the
number is zero articles of course. Yet Elsevier, who neither wrote nor paid
for any of these articles they claim copyright to, is entitled to $4.2
trillion in damages.

We might also ask, how many of the 28 million articles downloaded were done so
by people who if they had not found it on scihub would have paid the $28 or
$39 or $179 1 day or 3 day or 7 day "access pass" to read the single article?
Perhaps it is a few. Perhaps before scihub there were up to dozens of people a
month buying these access passes, across the many millions of articles
Elsevier claims to own despite them never having authored them nor having
financially compensated the authors.

Who are the real thieving parasitical self-serving pirates here? Is it
Elbakyan? Or is it Elsevier?

Who is the scientist fighting for academic freedom and working to spread
knowledge here? Is it Elbakyan? Or is it Elsevier?

~~~
tzs
Statutory damages are based on the number of works infringed, not the number
of infringing copies, so the calculation in your second paragraph is probably
off.

~~~
majewsky
If we have 28e6 downloads, I would consider it very likely that a lot of these
are unique works (by gut feeling along the lines of Zipf's law), so even if
the number of unique works in that set is lower, it should be in the same
ballpark.

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ckastner
Note that this was a default judgement: "Judge Sweet of the US district court
in southern New York ruled in favour of Elsevier, _in the absence of Elbakyan
or legal representatives of any of the defendants._ "

------
meshr
Doesn’t Elsevier understand that copyright law doesn’t work in Internet? They
spent bunch of money on layers and got nothing but a piece of paper. They
can’t even remove Sci-Hub from google.

~~~
intended
The MPAA, and the RIAA laugh and say Hi.

In the many years that have passed since Napster, the copyright and patent
trolls have had decent runs.

Copy right supporters in particular have converted their significant capital
into lobbying and political power.

Many laws currently enacted, even the fight for Net Neutrality today, traces
its roots back to the successful political and legal remedies applied by the
MPAA and RIAA.

Take a look at the state of Pirate bay, and the various torrent trackers which
have shut down.

Constant applied effort makes people stronger, it will also kill Sci-hub
eventually.

~~~
celticninja
It might kill sci-hub but it will just create:

1.Something stronger and more resistant to take down

2\. Many differing sites offering the same services

3\. Elsevier to change they way the operate so it is easier to buy direct from
them that use sci hub or the like.

Not sure about your point on the Pirate bay, the site is still up and running.

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thewisenerd
This article seems a bit late, or?

Here's a tweet thread from May 17'th of this year; linked in the original
artice, that would probably provide more info;

[https://twitter.com/SteveMcLaugh/status/865002008515719168](https://twitter.com/SteveMcLaugh/status/865002008515719168)

This article is written by another journal, so, take the article with a bit of
salt and pepper.

just gonna leave these here, anyway:

[https://www.nature.com/ecommerce/subscribe.action?productId=...](https://www.nature.com/ecommerce/subscribe.action?productId=nature)

[http://www.nature.com/openresearch/publishing-with-
npg/artic...](http://www.nature.com/openresearch/publishing-with-npg/article-
processing-charges-faqs/)

[http://www.nature.com/openresearch/publishing-with-
npg/natur...](http://www.nature.com/openresearch/publishing-with-npg/nature-
journals/)

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Brian_K_White
How much of this paywalled research was conducted even partly on public funds?

It is absolutely a public good for me for any curious researchers to have
unfettered access to as much human knowledge as possible. I guarantee we get
more out of that than we do out of protecting a publishers business model.

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woodandsteel
All the more reason to run Sci-Hub on ipfs.

