
After publishers sued Sci-Hub, Russian ISPs are preventing access - rbanffy
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gy7d7j/sci-hub-and-lib-gen-continue-to-get-attacked-around-the-world
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deogeo
The same companies from whom this material is supposedly being 'stolen', also
lobby against open access [0,1]. They corrupt laws to favour them and harm the
public, then complain when the public doesn't respect those same laws.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
switch/wp/2013/12/19...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
switch/wp/2013/12/19/how-one-publisher-is-stopping-academics-from-sharing-
their-research/)

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-
science/2018/j...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-
science/2018/jun/29/elsevier-are-corrupting-open-science-in-europe)

~~~
vernie
That's capitalism, baby!

~~~
sandov
What does it have to do with capitalism?

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tracker1
I think it's really just time to shift the knob on the "for a limited time"
part of the copyright/patent systems. It's obviously been extended too far,
and applied too broadly.

~~~
saidajigumi
I wholly agree, but suspect that this "begs the question" of the influence of
money on politics, particularly in the U.S.A.

Copyright terms are a classic policy battleground where the organization that
concerned citizens can muster pales against the focused interest of
corporations, or oftentimes _even of just one corporation_.

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jancsika
Scientists of HN: what do you make of the fact that a grad student with few
resources is the only person courageous enough to make all of your research
available to the public?

What do you tell your students when the subject of sci-hub comes up? Do you
think they should be inspired by what Elbakyan is doing? If so, do you tell
them that in public?

~~~
cbkeller
Surprised by the cynicism here. I'm a scientist, and I'm a fan of what she's
done. I think most of us probably are, actually.

~~~
jancsika
That's great to hear.

How much of a fan are you and the others to whom you refer? Have you/they
praised her/sci-hub in publicly accessible articles/videos?

~~~
cbkeller
This is public and traceable to my real identity right now.

I've always had legal access to the content I need personally, so I've never
had to actually use sci-hub -- but I appreciate that it's a huge equalizer for
those less fortunate. It's generally considered a bad idea to publicly admit
to copyright infringement, or else you might see sci-hub in paper
acknowlegments [1].

In the first relevant survey I could find, however [2]

> 62.5% of participants affirmed that Sci-Hub contributes to scientific
> investigation; only 2.2% reported that Sci-Hub does not contribute to
> science.

More broadly, the open access movement has been around for years, and has made
huge progress IMO considering that academia doesn't turn on a dime.

I should probably also point out that if sci-hub is napster, we've had a
sneakernet for literally centuries. If you see a paper you like, just email
one of the authors and they're very likely to send it to you. Prior to email,
the same thing was done through regular mail -- to the point that many
departments probably have a stack of "reprint request" postcards somewhere in
the basement. They look like this [3]. See also the #ICanHazPDF hashtag for
the social media version.

[1] [https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/115621/is-it-
wi...](https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/115621/is-it-wise-for-
researchers-to-thank-alexandra-elbakyan-founder-of-sci-hub-in-t) [2]
[https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185673)
[3] [http://blog.chembark.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/10/reprintc...](http://blog.chembark.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/10/reprintcards_big.jpg)

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Randy238480
Just an old kind of relevant article from Torrentfreak

[https://torrentfreak.com/copyright-monopoly-dead-buried-
alre...](https://torrentfreak.com/copyright-monopoly-dead-buried-
already-140803/)

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xvilka
Mirroring Sci-Hub on IPFS can help solve the domain problem.

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mycall
VPN time

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nbabitskiy
The person who's made the sci-hub is absolutely untolerable, sartre-like not-
self-aware communist. But what she does is amazing. I never thought a
commissar would teach me some tolerance.

(the wind bloweth where it listeth)

