"Sci-Hub Opens Up a World of Knowledge"
Alexandra Elbakyan, a 20- something year old grad student,
is operating a free searchable online database
of nearly 50 million stolen scholarly journal articles,
shattering the $10 billion-per-year paywall of academic publishers,
an awe-inspiring act of altruism,
or a massive criminal enterprise, depending on whom you ask.
Now up to 60 million papers, providing access to nearly all scholarly literature.
Via its websites sci-hub.cc, sci-hub.io, and sci-hub.ac,
Sci-Hub was able to fill 99.3% of articles requests, all for free.
[See some updated site links at the end of these captions.]
A sister site, Library Genesis, at libgen.io, distributes scientific books and textbooks
for free, more than a million of them, also illegally.
Who's downloading pirated papers?
Everyone, concluded this feature in the prestigious journal, Science.
A survey of potential users suggests for most
it's not some grand political statement,
but rather that's the only way they have access,
or feel it's just so much quicker and easier.
Even those who have legitimate institutional access may still choose to use Sci-Hub
because there's just so many fewer hoops to jump through.
So you can imagine how sites like Sci-Hub may
be filling publishers that charge for access
with roaring, existential panic, and they're not taking it lying down.
Elsevier, the largest publisher, notorious for demanding researchers take down
free copies of their own work,
sued Sci-Hub, the Library Genesis project, Alexandra,
and 99 John Does for copyright infringement, a willful disregard of Elsevier's rights.
Kind of hard to take the moral high ground, though,
when you're effectively an international arms dealer.
Can you imagine a tobacco company publishing health journals?
Surely the company's business mission would be impossibly confused:
would the company be in the business of killing people or keeping them alive?
But if you can't imagine that absurdity, well, welcome to Elsevier,
which in addition to publishing medical journals
is also involved in the global arms trade,
running arms fairs where things like cluster bombs are sold,
leading to medical journal editorial boards calling for a boycott
of Elsevier's warmongering, health damaging business practices.
In response to the lawsuit, Alexandra wrote a letter to the judge.
She wanted to make it clear that not only did Elsevier not create those papers,
but that they don't pay researchers a penny.
So it's not like pirated movie or song where the content creator is losing out,
noting that no researcher had ever complained that she was handing out their research.
In fact, scientific authors are typically thrilled
when their work gets more out into the world.
That's the whole point of science: to be shared and built upon.
In one fell swoop, Alexandra created a portal
likely offering a greater level of access to science
than any institution on Earth in history, literally opening up a world of knowledge.
And she's not backing down, citing in her defense Article 27
of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
that everyone should have the right to freely participate in the cultural life
of the community, including sharing in scientific advancement and its benefits.
She realizes she could be arrested and extradited to the U.S. to face charges.
She is fully aware that another computer prodigy-turned-advocate,
Aaron Swartz, was arrested on similar charges after mass downloading academic papers.
Facing devastating financial penalties and jail time, Swartz hanged himself.
[Alternate links to Sci-Hub 80.82.77.83, http://sci-hub.la, sci-hub.tv, sci-hub.hk]