[HN Gopher] Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?
        
       Author : Cream-Corn-11
       Score  : 190 points
       Date   : 2021-07-04 16:29 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.chronicle.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.chronicle.com)
        
       | unixhero wrote:
       | How might we help her?
        
         | failwhaleshark wrote:
         | Legal gofundme.
         | 
         | Congress people or local representatives.
         | 
         | Talk about it.
        
           | unixhero wrote:
           | They will win the court battles. There should be other
           | strategies she can take.
        
         | mrtksn wrote:
         | I think persistence will win this one because the moral dilemma
         | is pretty weak here. Unlike with the software and arts, we
         | don't need to seek a funding model for the researchers when we
         | take their work for free.
         | 
         | It's my impression that it's a matter of adaptation before the
         | free access becomes the norm. Therefore technical help and
         | civil disobedience should eventually do the job.
         | 
         | In this case, we are stealing from the CD company without
         | actually stealing the CDs. With a path adjustment we should be
         | able to stop stealing CDs without any monetary impact on the
         | content creators.
        
           | martin1975 wrote:
           | free is a flawed concept - energy and time went into
           | publishing each paper meaning someone paid. If the authors
           | want to give permission, then she ought to seek it for each
           | paper she's put on her website or seek permission from
           | whomever owns the copyright. Otherwise it's theft. And no
           | amount of civil disobedience can justify theft.
        
             | mrtksn wrote:
             | The situation is closer to the people who pay for AOL dial-
             | up in 2021 because they don't know that they don't need it
             | for the broadband.
             | 
             | Definitely some effort goes to running these companies just
             | like keeping the dial-up lines operational. Totally not
             | cool to steal the dial-up, what we should do is to cancel
             | it.
        
             | unixhero wrote:
             | Well dude, information wants to be free.
        
             | jazzyjackson wrote:
             | Not theft bro
             | 
             | Taxes paid for the research, taxes pay for access to
             | journals (institutional subscriptions by libraries and
             | universities) so the whole paywall thing just feels like
             | taxpayers are getting fleeced.
             | 
             | Make access to journals free and save us all the penny.
        
             | krastanov wrote:
             | Some people (me included) consider "intellectual property"
             | an oxymoron. But you do not need to go that far in the
             | extreme to be supportive of scihub and similar entities: I
             | am a scientist. I am paid from research grants, this is
             | what makes it possible for me to write a paper. I am also
             | involved in reviewing papers, but that I do for free. Then
             | I pay a journal to store my paper (the journal did not pay
             | the paper reviewers). Usually I even do most of the
             | typesetting for the paper I write. Then I also pay the
             | journal to get access to the paper.
             | 
             | In this story, I do not feel any guilt "stealing" from a
             | journal that did not contribute anything but prestige to
             | the creation of that paper (and was already paid twice for
             | it, before I even tried to read the paper).
        
         | mbil wrote:
         | You can send a contribution to the Sci-Hub Bitcoin address:
         | 12PCbUDS4ho7vgSccmixKTHmq9qL2mdSns
         | 
         | via https://sci-hub.st/
        
         | sneak wrote:
         | Send money to the bitcoin donation address on the site.
         | 
         | Verify it for yourself as well, but I believe the address is
         | 12PCbUDS4ho7vgSccmixKTHmq9qL2mdSns
        
       | leephillips wrote:
       | Ms. Elbakyan attacked me rather hysterically on Twitter when she
       | learned of an article1 on my site that describes several methods
       | to acquire free copies of scientific articles, including Sci-Hub.
       | I tried to get her to tell me why she thought it was terrible of
       | me to mention any non-Sci-Hub pathways, but her replies made less
       | sense with each iteration. So I think that Sci-Hub has been a
       | valuable resource, but I have concerns about its stability.
       | 
       | [1] https://lee-phillips.org/articleAccess/
        
         | fabbari wrote:
         | I am confused.
         | 
         | This is your tweet about the article [0] - it's from 18 hours
         | ago. The last tweet from Alexandra [1] is from the 9th of May.
         | 
         | Am I missing something?
         | 
         | [0]
         | https://mobile.twitter.com/lpfeed/status/1411543135944073217
         | [1]
         | https://mobile.twitter.com/ringo_ring/status/139160709025538...
        
           | leephillips wrote:
           | No. Our last tweets are not the ones I was referring to.
        
         | pedrosorio wrote:
         | > attacked me rather hysterically on Twitter
         | 
         | The article is not the most relevant link when claiming you
         | were attacked "hysterically" on Twitter. If a link to the
         | latter does not exist, preventing neutral parties from
         | evaluating the situation, I do not see the point in leaving
         | this comment.
        
         | asteroidbelt wrote:
         | > Ms. Elbakyan attacked me rather hysterically on Twitter
         | 
         | Interestingly you have shared a link to your article, but not
         | to the Twitter thread you referenced. Which raises suspicions
         | about you telling the truth and the full truth.
         | 
         | > but I have concerns about its stability
         | 
         | Just set up a mirror then.
        
           | leephillips wrote:
           | The account from which she attacked me is suspended, and the
           | tweets do not show. If I linked to the thread, which I can if
           | you insist, it will only have my side of the conversation.
           | Those who know me also know that I am telling the truth. If
           | you prefer to disregard what I say, that's fine with me.
        
             | xyzzy123 wrote:
             | Are you sure you weren't trolled by a third party?
        
             | Caylio wrote:
             | If you don't link to the thread, everyone will prefer to
             | disregard what you say.
        
         | crumbshot wrote:
         | > _Ms. Elbakyan attacked me rather hysterically on Twitter when
         | she learned of an article on my site that describes several
         | methods to acquire free copies of scientific articles,_
         | 
         | Just looks like an emphatic disagreement to me: https://web.arc
         | hive.org/web/20200928010251/https://twitter.c...,
         | https://web.archive.org/web/20200928011503/https://twitter.c...
         | 
         | Also, considering the etymology ("of the womb"), your criticism
         | of her replies comes across as quite sexist.
        
           | leephillips wrote:
           | Thanks for digging that up, I appreciate it; I didn't think
           | of looking in the Archive.
           | 
           | We'll have to disagree about whether her reaction was
           | hysterical. She called my article "ridiculous" and compared
           | it to recommending that people use horse-and-buggy
           | transportation. I was pretty mystified by the tenor of her
           | remarks. One of my points was that Sci-Hub could become
           | unavailable, either globally or locally, so it's good to know
           | about other ways to get one's hands on articles. Just
           | mentioning alternatives was offensive to her. We see now that
           | this was not an unrealistic consideration.
        
       | nicolas_t wrote:
       | > The website is blocked in a dozen countries, including Austria,
       | Britain, and France.
       | 
       | I'm deeply ashamed that my country would block sci-hub given that
       | the current system is preventing scientific development.
        
         | enriquto wrote:
         | > I'm deeply ashamed that my country would block sci-hub given
         | that the current system is preventing scientific development.
         | 
         | Are you in France? In that case you'll find that french
         | academic librarians are extremely open to this stuff. I have
         | participated in some proposals to cancel all elsevier+other
         | library subscriptions and give all that money directly to
         | SciHub, and the librarians were always very receptive to the
         | idea. Unfortunately, this sort of initiative inevitably gets
         | stuck in the upper echelons of some administrative procedure
         | and never materializes. I guess predatory editors have a deeply
         | entrenched influence within the academic institutions,
         | otherwise I don't understand how that happens...
        
         | amelius wrote:
         | Scientists should put Scihub in the acknowledgements section of
         | their papers. As in "this research would not have been possible
         | without Scihub".
        
           | breck wrote:
           | I did this! I encourage _everyone_ to do it! Include the Sci
           | hub link with the DOI.
        
           | failwhaleshark wrote:
           | That is a genius hack. ("Genius" might be redundant.)
        
             | kergonath wrote:
             | That is a huge problem if you acknowledge using an illegal
             | platform in your professional work, including for your co-
             | authors. Almost the opposite of genius, actually.
        
               | mcguire wrote:
               | How so? Might not want to mention it in the same footnote
               | as the grant number.
        
               | userbinator wrote:
               | That reminds me of a phrase I've heard in relation to
               | file sharing and such: "if everyone runs the red light
               | together, there is nothing to be afraid of".
        
               | kergonath wrote:
               | Doing it and claiming to have done it in a professional
               | setting are quite different though. I am perfectly
               | willing to believe that a lot of researchers use Sci-Hub
               | (though from my experience they tend to use Researchgate
               | more); I am certain that the number of people who would
               | shout about doing it on the rooftops is nowhere near even
               | a small minority.
        
               | enriquto wrote:
               | What you say does not correspond to my personal
               | experience. As a single data point, in my research group
               | _all_ twelve phd students and five postdocs use SciHub
               | regularly. Some of the faculty don 't know it even
               | exists, others do.
        
               | kzrdude wrote:
               | That metaphor backfirews pretty hard IMO, is that
               | intentional?
        
               | thaumasiotes wrote:
               | How so? Everyone running a light together is the expected
               | behavior if you change the color of the light. In other
               | words, it describes nothing that isn't occurring
               | constantly everywhere. Where does the metaphor backfire?
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | mb7733 wrote:
               | The metaphor backfires because if everyone runs red
               | lights they will collide with one another, as well as
               | with those going through green lights.
        
               | samatman wrote:
               | Can't tell if it's intentional (some variation on Poe's
               | law applies here), but this is a near-perfect
               | illustration of the difference between a rivalrous (space
               | in an intersection) and non-rivalrous (copies of a
               | digital file) good.
               | 
               | I will allow that there may be some harms which can
               | result from unlimited copying of anything you want-- but
               | they bear no resemblance to the collision of automobiles
               | in the midst of a busy intersection.
        
               | breck wrote:
               | Courageous, I would say. More important than genius.
        
               | kergonath wrote:
               | Yes, that would fit better.
        
               | wizzwizz4 wrote:
               | Ah, but Sci-Hub isn't illegal. There's nothing wrong with
               | visiting the Sci-Hub home page, nor with using it as a
               | convenient way to access open-access papers.
        
               | kergonath wrote:
               | Right* (depending on jurisdiction, ymmv). Getting from it
               | articles that you cannot have otherwise is (except for
               | the vanishingly few articles in the public domain, which
               | are not really likely to be found on Sci-Hub anyway. I
               | tried).
               | 
               | Saying that the work could not have been done without it
               | is basically admitting that you got papers outside the
               | subscriptions of your institution. It is also against the
               | policy of all the institutions I know, so could be
               | grounds for termination. And again, this could apply to
               | your co-authors as well.
               | 
               | I am really not endorsing the subscription model, but
               | putting something like that in your articles'
               | acknowledgments really is not smart.
        
               | amelius wrote:
               | > Saying that the work could not have been done without
               | it is basically admitting that you got papers outside the
               | subscriptions of your institution.
               | 
               | Not really. It could also mean: Scihub offers an
               | efficient way to explore scientific articles, and without
               | it, I (the scientist) wouldn't have bothered with all the
               | different paywalls to even check if papers were worth
               | reading. And as such, I would not have reached the same
               | results.
        
               | kergonath wrote:
               | It does not make the work possible, though. Just more
               | convenient.
        
               | amelius wrote:
               | No because a scientist can only deal with so much
               | bureaucracy.
               | 
               | After a certain limit, they will go into "I will invent
               | it myself" mode.
               | 
               | And here is a different argument. Scientists often have
               | brilliant moments while e.g. showering. So they could
               | have written: "this work would not have been possible
               | without showers". The statement itself does not imply
               | anything about whether they paid for the water or not. Or
               | even if they took a shower. Perhaps the thought of a
               | shower triggered the eureka moment.
        
               | Aeolun wrote:
               | > Saying that the work could not have been done without
               | it is basically admitting that you got papers outside the
               | subscriptions of your institution.
               | 
               | Isn't that exactly the point? How is it not hindering
               | scientific progress if you do not have access to research
               | that you don't pay for.
               | 
               | It's not like the journals themselves fund the research,
               | they're just getting a free ride.
        
               | jfoutz wrote:
               | I had a snarky remark about Galileo and Copernicus, but
               | it's probably not relevant.
        
           | thrdbndndn wrote:
           | Interestingly, when I was still in university, I never used
           | Sci-hub at all. I can download almost any paper using
           | school's network (or VPN) since the library have
           | subscriptions for basically all the major publishers.
           | 
           | I only started to use it occasionally once I've graduated
           | (but I didn't really do any formal research any more.)
        
         | failwhaleshark wrote:
         | Publishing papers in journals isn't about scientific
         | development, it's about publish-persish. The issue is the
         | journals suck-in the papers and then walled-garden them like
         | they were _their_ original research when they are simply the
         | publisher.
         | 
         | Academia needs to throw away for-profit journal publishers and
         | leave it with social co-ops and nonprofits.
        
         | easytiger wrote:
         | > Britain
         | 
         | Not blocked for me at the the original domain
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Submitted URL was https://archive.ph/huNwk. It's ok to post
       | workaround links in the thread, but please don't make them the
       | original submission. We want the canonical URL for that.
        
         | wrycoder wrote:
         | Good to know, thanks.
        
         | NelsonMinar wrote:
         | The irony of needing an unlicensed copy of an article to read
         | about a website that publishes unlicensed copies of articles.
        
           | qayxc wrote:
           | You can just disable JavaScript and the site works fine.
        
       | Tommek wrote:
       | The answer as always to those questions: No.
        
         | asteroidbelt wrote:
         | It is called
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...
        
       | voldacar wrote:
       | Seriously, why would you make your awesome website less useful
       | for _everyone_ because a court in India wants you to do
       | something?
       | 
       | Are you Indian? Does the Indian government have some kind of
       | authority over you? Are you combing through the laws of India to
       | make sure you are complying with all of them?
       | 
       | When you're operating this kind of site, why even bother
       | acknowledging the existence of Indian courts, or any court that
       | can't literally imprison you right now?
        
         | NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
         | As I recall, it was part of a strategy with the Indian courts.
         | She thought she might win in court ultimately, and this was
         | necessary for that outcome. Not sure what the present state of
         | things is.
        
         | miguelmurca wrote:
         | Read the article!
         | 
         | > The latest lawsuit, filed in India by three academic
         | publishers, including Elsevier, asks the High Court of Delhi to
         | block access to Sci-Hub throughout the country. While the case
         | is pending, the court has instructed Sci-Hub to stop uploading
         | papers to its database. The order is not unusual; what's
         | surprising is that Elbakyan has complied. She has a history of
         | ignoring legal rulings, and the Indian court has no power over
         | Sci-Hub's activities in other countries. So why has she chosen,
         | at this moment, to give in?
         | 
         | > One reason is that Elbakyan believes she has a shot at
         | winning the case, and her odds might improve if she plays by
         | the rules. "I want the Indian court to finally support free
         | access to science," she said. If that happened, it would mark a
         | significant victory for Sci-Hub, with reverberations likely
         | beyond India. Victory remains a longshot, but Elbakyan thinks
         | it's worth the hassle and expense.
        
       | einpoklum wrote:
       | So what's the status of the legal case in India? It's been nearly
       | a year, right?
       | 
       | It's weird that the reporter did not find that interesting enough
       | to discuss.
        
       | oolonthegreat wrote:
       | I shudder to think what will happen if sci-hub is blocked
       | completely. Someone should put it on the blockhain or something
       | :)
        
         | jmcgough wrote:
         | Before scihub, I was in a livejournal Neuroscience community
         | that was mostly researchers - half the posts were "I don't have
         | access to x article, can someone send me the PDF?"
         | 
         | We need a better solution to Elsevier etc but the people who
         | most need it (grad students living on a 30k stipend) have
         | little power to fight things, and every reason not to stick
         | their neck out when their future depends on publishing to paid
         | journals.
        
       | ivoras wrote:
       | What about China?
       | 
       | It's famously irreverent towards western-style copyright, seems
       | like it could (well, it's a difficult "it", granted) score some
       | brownie points by making a mirror which is accessible both within
       | and without their great firewall.
        
       | Jsone wrote:
       | The article is blocked behind a subscription prompt for me, but
       | it's implemented in a silly way that's trivially by-passable.
       | It's just some js code that checks if you've scrolled past a
       | limit and scrolls you back to the top if so. Anything that
       | removes js from the content defeats it, including Firefox's
       | built-in Reader View.
        
         | cblconfederate wrote:
         | most paywalls are bypassed with * {overflow: auto; position:
         | relative; }
        
         | einpoklum wrote:
         | You can just select-all on the entire text and that seems to
         | work too (but I have EFF privacy badger so I might be
         | cheating).
        
         | ummonk wrote:
         | Yeah, I likewise just switched to Safari reader view.
        
       | andyxor wrote:
       | Help saving Scihub article collection (85M papers, 77TB)
       | https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/nc27fv/rescue_...
        
       | Simulacra wrote:
       | FWIW I think she's a folk hero who is doing a lot of good.
        
       | efitz wrote:
       | I really think that every government should pass laws that
       | require no-charge access to any research that is paid for in
       | whole or part by that government, and FRAND licensing of patents
       | resulting from such research. The idea of private companies rent-
       | seeking on publicly funded research is one of the worst forms of
       | crony capitalism.
        
       | alpaca128 wrote:
       | > The website is blocked in a dozen countries, including Austria,
       | Britain, and France.
       | 
       | In Austria the providers do block it, but it's still reachable
       | via the *.st TLD. Not sure if that's an official sci-hub page or
       | not, but it works.
        
         | pmyteh wrote:
         | It is blocked in the UK, but only using the usual 'good enough'
         | quasi-voluntary measures that cover the bigger ISPs. It's
         | accessible through my more hacker-friendly home broadband.
         | 
         | Hilariously, it's also available through JANET, the British
         | universities' networking system. So essentially every student
         | and researcher in the country has access from work...
        
           | failwhaleshark wrote:
           | The bigger question is: Why promote or condone the gating of
           | view access to published research at all? It's not okay.
        
             | DaiPlusPlus wrote:
             | Copyright is the law of the land.
        
       | tbabej wrote:
       | I really wonder how this is going to play out. For those who
       | don't follow the current situation with Sci-Hub, Alexandra (the
       | creator and likely the sole operator) of Sci-Hub shut down the
       | part of the website ("the magical proxy") that is responsible for
       | fetching the papers that were not previously retrieved. This was
       | done to comply with the request of the Indian court, as described
       | in the article.
       | 
       | As a result, any papers published in 2021 (and some of the rarer,
       | older ones, that nobody tried to access in the past) are not
       | retrievable by Sci-Hub. The user only gets to see a white screen.
       | 
       | This is meant to be a temporary measure, but it's been going on
       | since December of last year (due to various court hearing
       | delays), and the desperation in online communities like the
       | r/scihub subreddit has been palpable [1,2].
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://old.reddit.com/r/scihub/comments/o2xb57/how_do_i_eve...
       | [2]
       | https://old.reddit.com/r/scihub/comments/lofj0r/announcement...
        
         | jorvi wrote:
         | I'm very confused, why would she ever have to comply with
         | orders of an Indian (or indeed, US) court if she resides in
         | Europe?
        
           | crazygringo wrote:
           | It's explained in the original article.
        
           | skissane wrote:
           | She doesn't have to comply with the Indian court order. She
           | chose to because she thinks she has a chance of winning the
           | case. To her, a court ruling that SciHub is legal under
           | Indian law would be a huge win. Obeying the court order
           | increases the odds the court will rule in her favour. It is a
           | calculated risk on her part.
        
           | tbabej wrote:
           | She did not _have_ to, but she voluntarily chose to, in order
           | to have a shot of winning this case. If she didn 't comply
           | with the court's orders, I assume the chances of winning
           | would plummet. From the article:
           | 
           | > One reason is that Elbakyan believes she has a shot at
           | winning the case, and her odds might improve if she plays by
           | the rules. "I want the Indian court to finally support free
           | access to science," she said. If that happened, it would mark
           | a significant victory for Sci-Hub, with reverberations likely
           | beyond India. Victory remains a longshot, but Elbakyan thinks
           | it's worth the hassle and expense. She didn't even bother to
           | contest the two lawsuits in the United States.
        
             | vslira wrote:
             | Can third parties (especially foreigners) finance legal
             | battles in India? Can we donate?
        
           | lhoff wrote:
           | It's explained in the article. She thinks there is a chance
           | to win the case in India which would be a useful publicity
           | stunt and therefore complies with the court order.
        
             | skissane wrote:
             | > win the case in India which would be a useful publicity
             | stunt
             | 
             | It isn't just about publicity, it is also about legal
             | precedent.
             | 
             | In the English common law system, a judge is allowed to
             | cite not just precedent from within their own country's
             | legal system, but also precedent from courts in foreign
             | common law jurisdictions. Foreign courts are not binding
             | precedent, but a judge is allowed to say they are persuaded
             | by the foreign court's reasoning. The propriety of citing
             | foreign court judgements has become rather controversial in
             | the US, but in England and other common law jurisdictions
             | it is an accepted practice which few question.
             | 
             | I doubt a legal precedent from India is going to persuade
             | the courts of developed countries like UK, US, Canada,
             | Australia, New Zealand, etc. Even though most of those are
             | technically allowed to consider Indian court decisions (as
             | a fellow common law jurisdiction), they rarely give Indian
             | courts much heed in practice. But it may be much more
             | influential with the courts of developing countries in
             | Africa and elsewhere. That's Elbakyan is trying to do, win
             | a case in India and then use that as a springboard to
             | winning cases in other countries too.
        
         | xtracto wrote:
         | I'm pessimistic. Long before sci-hub, library genesis and
         | Alexandra there was ebook-club / library.nu and Smiley (its
         | creator). When it closed it was described as the burning of the
         | library of Alexandria. There were a lot of non-technical books
         | on that site and it was amazing. Still, it lost the battle.
         | 
         | Ultimately, sci-hub will unfortunately get the same end. Until
         | the Scientific society stops maintaining the leeches that are
         | the scientific journals, nothing will change.
        
         | baybal2 wrote:
         | Don't have much hope for the legal system on the subcontinent.
         | Indian, Pakistani, Deshi courts are all legendary slow. It's
         | nearly impossible to win against concerted, deliberate
         | extension, and delay tactic against somebody who has more money
         | to write legal letters than you.
         | 
         | Unlike the GB legal system, from which they branched out, they
         | never got the reformation wave circa 1960-1970 when UK was
         | trying to root out the most outrageous flaws of English law.
         | 
         | There was a now legendary legal dispute over land near either
         | Multan, or Kohat, can't remember exactly, which began in 19th
         | century, outlasted 6, or 7 generations, and ended just few
         | years ago.
        
       | ajb wrote:
       | Given how beneficial sci-hub is, there ought to be some way that
       | the scientific community can formally recognise this, as a way of
       | legitimizing her cause.
       | 
       | Some ways I can think of:
       | 
       | * Get her elected as rector of a university. Contraversial
       | figures are sometimes elected as Rector, at least in the UK,
       | because students are the electorate. However for the same reason
       | this isn't considered especially prestigious by people who know
       | this.
       | 
       | * Fund and create an academic post specifically for her (Ptolomy
       | II Professor of the ethics of copyright strikes me a a suitably
       | biting title [1])
       | 
       | * Nominate her to some well known prize
       | 
       | [1] Ptolomy II decreed that any book found in a ship in the port
       | of Alexandria should be copied by the scribes of his library -
       | with or without the permission of the owner. The UK actually has
       | a similar law in that publishers are required to send copies of
       | any book published in the UK to the British Library
        
       | wolverine876 wrote:
       | What will happen to research outside wealthy institutions if Sci-
       | Hub shuts down? Are there alternatives?
        
         | cblconfederate wrote:
         | Many people work at home now, even if they work at wealthy
         | institutions
        
           | frostburg wrote:
           | That's not really the issue. You would set up a proxy, log
           | with your institutional account... actually even with access
           | the sci-hub UX is vastly superior.
        
         | dasudasu wrote:
         | Lots of people upload their research to ResearchGate (even
         | though I really dislike the site for other reasons), make it
         | available from their research group's web page, or in some
         | fields upload it to ArXiv or BioRxiv. It's usually not against
         | the terms of paywalled journals to do any of these things.
         | Google Scholar or even the regular Google search engine can be
         | decent at finding these PDF links. As a last resort, if you're
         | serious about wanting to read a paper, you can contact the
         | corresponding author, who will usually email you a copy and be
         | glad you are interested in his/her work, though this becomes a
         | bit impractical if you need access to multiple references.
        
       | jazzyjackson wrote:
       | Is injecting malware into PDFs still a thing? If so, it could be
       | a national security matter to give people access via a trusted
       | source so they don't have to go to a grey market to get their
       | research papers.
       | 
       | And I'll just +1 here that even when I did have access through
       | university, the flow for logging into elsevier was like 8 clicks,
       | and then after finding the paper, the button to download and read
       | it was hidden on the side as an image-button, no alt or title
       | text. Just an image with the word "download pdf"
       | 
       | So yeah, I went to sci-hub every time.
        
       | chaps wrote:
       | It's ironic and frustrating that the site requires you to sign in
       | to read the article...
        
       | esrh wrote:
       | Something I've always wondered is why Alexandra put her name and
       | identity out there. Would it not have been easier to remain
       | anonymous?
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | eruci wrote:
       | The article about the pirate queen is behind a paywall. The
       | irony.
        
       | enriquto wrote:
       | This is extremely infuriating. Alexandra Elbakyan has done a huge
       | positive contribution to human civilization, even knowing that it
       | was putting herself at personal risk. She's just 32 years old.
       | How can we help her? Does she need money, public support, vpns in
       | every country? Whatever she needs, mankind is indebted to her and
       | we should help if we can.
       | 
       | Anybody who has ever supported their research using Sci-Hub (or
       | Library Genesis) should consider helping back. I certainly do,
       | but I don't know how to best support her. Any suggestions?
       | 
       | She's not very communicative lately:
       | https://twitter.com/ringo_ring
        
         | breck wrote:
         | We need to start organizing and go on the offensive: abolish
         | copyright and patents through a constitutional amendment--
         | http://www.breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendmen...
         | 
         | If you're wondering how to get the public to support it, we
         | need to start spreading the truth. The opioid crisis kicked off
         | by Purdue? Wouldn't have happened without USPTO. Big tech
         | monopolists? They get their monopoly power from IS laws. The
         | list goes and on. IS laws choke the flow of information through
         | the nervous system of the world and we feel it's consequences
         | all over the place.
        
           | nhooyr wrote:
           | What is IS law?
        
           | SV_BubbleTime wrote:
           | Linking to your own website is fine and all, but not exactly
           | a reference.
           | 
           | And it's hilariously short sighted. Without patent and
           | copywrite protections, you'll instantly see innovation come
           | out of places where people are paid for their work. US
           | offloading it's manufacturing in a short sighted move to
           | cheap labor and head-in-sand environmental outlook - sure,
           | let's kill the design industries too now too.
           | 
           | There is a problem with how papers are shared and the orgs
           | that control archiving and release. That doesn't mean all
           | patents must be thrown out.
        
             | mbar84 wrote:
             | The balance of cost and benefits is not as clear as you may
             | think.
             | 
             | https://questioncopyright.org/
             | http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm
        
             | jazzyjackson wrote:
             | If going patent-free is good enough for the transistor...
             | 
             | Do you have any rebuttal to parent's points on Purdue and
             | tech monopolies?
        
               | TheOtherHobbes wrote:
               | Yes, of course.
               | 
               | Do you really think drug cartels need the IPTO? Or that
               | the opioid crisis couldn't possibly have happened if the
               | opioids had been generics?
               | 
               | Who has an IP monopoly on alcohol production? Is alcohol
               | addition a huge problem, or not?
               | 
               | Why do you believe tech monopolies rely specifically on
               | _patents_ and not on massive spending power, political
               | leverage, and other influencing mechanisms?
               | 
               | Do you not understand that if you have the spending
               | power, you can open-source your code and IP without even
               | remotely endangering that monopoly?
               | 
               | The reality is that patents are a relatively tiny element
               | in cost of entry to markets.
               | 
               | It's honestly baffling why the anti-copyright crowd
               | believes removing patents and copyright will be some kind
               | of magic bus ride to utopia, when there is no rational
               | reason whatsoever to believe that.
               | 
               | And none of this has much to do with making scientific
               | papers public domain - because that isn't even the same
               | class of issue.
        
         | slim wrote:
         | I think if you are a researcher, you should publish directly on
         | sci-hub (is that even possible?) Make sci-hub the greatest and
         | most prestigious scientific publication
        
           | smt88 wrote:
           | This would be wonderfully altruistic, but it would be career
           | suicide as well.
        
             | enriquto wrote:
             | This is simply not true. The world has changed a lot the
             | last 10 years. In many scientific fields, you are actually
             | _expected_ to publish your  "preprint" in the open and also
             | your source code.
        
           | jeroenhd wrote:
           | I don't believe you can publish on Sci-Hub, but you can join
           | the open access movement by publishing your work on sites
           | such as Arxiv where anyone can read your work.
           | 
           | If every scientist published their work on open access
           | platforms, Sci-Hub wouldn't need to exist in the first place.
        
           | thrdbndndn wrote:
           | > most prestigious
           | 
           | The existing "prestigious" journals are prestigious because
           | of the peer-reviewing process. How do we solve this problem
           | with Sci-hub? I mean, you can publish your research anywhere
           | (like your homepage) already if you choose to.
        
           | aritmo wrote:
           | You can just publish to a relevant journal, and make the PDF
           | available easily to Sci-Hub. As in, put the PDF on your
           | homepage along with the DOI so that Sci-Hub can easily pick
           | up.
        
         | revscat wrote:
         | It is important up understand that the laws are such that
         | "justice" is equated with "maximizing capital", as cynical as
         | it is to say, and as such any financial support given to those
         | who fight such a system will inevitably prove to be gestures
         | without much effect. She may attempt to better humanity, but
         | the neoliberal capitalism that permeates all governments, west
         | to east, will stand against her for the primary reason that she
         | interferes with increasing capital. She has no allies with any
         | political power, however we may wish differently.
        
         | danuker wrote:
         | > I don't know how to best support her. Any suggestions?
         | 
         | My guess would be to donate to her. Near the bottom of the page
         | is a BTC address (please check it yourself):
         | 
         | https://sci-hub.do/ https://sci-hub.st/ https://sci-hub.se/
         | 
         | All the domains have the same address for me:
         | 12PCbUDS4ho7vgSccmixKTHmq9qL2mdSns
         | 
         | Money (and Bitcoin is among the freest money) can be used on
         | whatever she needs.
        
           | glenneroo wrote:
           | Just donated, thanks for the tip! (and for anyone wondering,
           | yes that BTC address is correct, I triple-checked).
        
             | jers wrote:
             | Thanks for checking but probably best if everyone double
             | checks for themselves too.
        
           | enriquto wrote:
           | Cool! Never used bitcoin, but that may be the first time if I
           | figure out how to do it.
        
         | andyxor wrote:
         | There is a rescue mission to save Scihub papers, you can help
         | seeding the torrents
         | https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/nc27fv/rescue_...
        
           | enriquto wrote:
           | That's great, and easy to do! I have an old NAS around, will
           | try to set it up this week.
        
         | juanani wrote:
         | Yeah, there's this stain of an empire that we just can't easily
         | scrub off the planet. Just don't worry about it and keep
         | feeding it.
        
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