The blocking of the site by ISPs and search engines is the bad part, IMO. Other than that, it seems pretty standard.

And it's kind of dumb, because they could just get a new domain name, like many of the other torrent sites do. It's effectively worthless.

This is the key takeaway from the article. As much as I agree that researches deserve fair compensation for their work; I also believe gate-keeping academic knowledge is also wrong. It's not surprising that the US legal system found against Sci-hub. Issuing the legally binding statement, that blocking a site by ISP and search engine level, is the real problem. It sets a very tenuous precedent.

> As much as I agree that researches deserve fair compensation for their work

Researchers don't get paid by journals for their submissions. In fact, it's usually exactly the opposite: most of the big ones have submission fees.

This is why I don't really have any sympathy for the publishers affected by Sci-Hub, when at the same I strenuously oppose software/game piracy. I just don't see what service they provide: they don't pay the researchers, they don't pay the peer reviewers, and they don't validate the papers beyond basic copy-editing and typesetting. They're just useless middlemen who provide no utility. I'll be spitting on their grave when we finally get rid of them.

Why they don't start publishing in Sci-Hub directly instead?

Right now the main barrier is the prestige that comes with some of the bigger journals, but that's a shallow moat. Honestly, it could happen soon. There have been stories recently about people presenting at scientific conferences, asking the room "raise your hand if you think Sci-Hub is doing something wrong", and getting no response. Everyone knows that the current model is indefensible.

Thanks for the clarification. I agree with what you're saying; paywalls need to go away especially for valuable scientific research/findings.

How do researchers get paid under the current system? My understanding is that the journals do not pay the scientists that produce the articles. Am I mistaken in this?

You're not mistaken - journals don't pay researchers or reviewers. If they did, I'd be significantly less upset by their practices. As is, they get their product (papers) and their skilled labor (reviews) for free.

Elsevier had a 36% profit margin last year, which is a pretty clear signal that they don't face sincere costs or competition.

They are paid ether by their respective universities/institutions/companies and/or they pay themselves from the grant money they were awarded for a specific project.

But the key point is that they're not paid by the publisher for the publication, they're paid to produce the publication by others. The publisher is just gets it for (basically) free and then profits off the fees.

In fact, you may very well also be paying to get your research published. They get you coming and going.

Are we counting only monetary payments? I'm assuming there is some benefit that is given to the scientist for publishing, especially in cases where the scientist pay to publish. It isn't likely at all a simple relationship between two parties, but I doubt that the scientists are being irrational by using a publisher.

Sure, but how does paying the publisher enter into this? The scientist may well be happy to have their paper shared freely after publication, since they receive no reward from the publisher. Scientists are only being irrational if they have choice in the matter. If they are forced to publish by the community / university, they may well resent being forced to use such publishers.

Researchers don't receive a cut of the journal access fees. They generally have to pay thousands of dollars to publish in a journal in the first place.

Their library also has to pay thousands to subscribe to this journal.

I grew up in a country where certain websites (you know, like adult sites) are blocked, I'm not comparing this to that exactly, but isn't it strange to be told that your ISP is hereby not allowed to provide you access to a website? Especially when nobody unanimously agrees that it's a bad thing? (I'm not here to argue the ethics/morality of it, but pointing out that it has proponents on both sides)

I mean, I know blocking some content is the norm in many countries (lots of European countries do it for various purposes (nazi content, child porn, etc, that are almost unanimously considered 'bad')). Isn't this a drastic new step for the US? (again, I don't exactly keep up with this, but this seems new to me)

Dane here. Our ISPs blocked a lot of sites and claimed they were all cp, but when the list (or partial they wouldn't comment) got leaked on wikileaks it turned out to be also a bunch of gay sites as well as a dutch company selling trucks for warehouses - not exactly dressed, but also not CP.

So I wouldn't trust the integrity of any system which we are being denied information about.

Strange? Yes, it's strange that the first amendment be ignored by the courts themselves when ordering such a clearly unconstitutional injunction. It basically boils down to the government telling ISPs and other sites what legal text they can and cannot write on their sites. I cannot think of a clearer, more direct violation of the first amendment.

Article I Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to establish copyright. That puts it on equal footing to the First Amendment, and being more specific than the First Amendment gives it precedence.

It is pretty abnormal for the US, but not unheard of.

The problem is, that mostly the only ones impacted are the people who were committing copyright infringement and they are a very small minority of the total population, poorly funded, and not a viable voting bloc.

It is going to be a tough battle. However, we have alternative means to reach the site.

It's also a first amendment violation. Do US ISPs currently actively block any websites? US ISPs do have mandatory monitoring, which means you can get to child porn sites, but you immediately get reported for it.

This is the icky part:

* by appearing in the US court defenders would put themselves into the court's jurisdiction. It is a virtual certainty that the defendants will lose.

* by not appearing in the US court the defendants would get a default judgement against them. A third party might claim that a court ordering ISP blocking becomes a kangaroo court, but that third party has no standing in the case and unless for some strange reason a judge decides to do more than just follow a default procedure whatever is asked in the lawsuit would be granted to the plaintiff.

Edit: In theory, a plaintiff can ask as a part of a relief to make a defendant walk around a block for three hours, making donkey noises and if a defendant does not show up it may very well end up being awarded as a part of a default judgement. By appearing, the defendant most likely can get this part of the remedy tossed but at the same time by appearing the defendant would place itself into court's jurisdiction.

So it is a no win case for a defendant.

I agree. However, what seems strange to me is the blanket order against all the entities that weren't present in court: ISPS, Search Engines, Web Hosting providers, Domain Registrars and Registries[1].

I'm not a lawyer, but it appears that the lawsuit started off as ACS vs. John Does Sci-Hub/Alexandra Elbakyan, and ended as ACS vs. every ISP out there.

Just seems strange to file a verdict against ISPs, without providing them the chance of being a defendant, or at the very least part of the lawsuit. Not that most of them would care about blocking a website, but on principle it seems odd.

[1] https://torrentfreak.com/images/acsorder.pdf

ISP level blocking seems inherently objectionable.

I agree that "trying to get injunctions against sites breaking US law" is mundane regardless of whether one agrees with the law, but that's not really my concern here. Generally pursuit of actors outside US jurisdiction is either abandoned or done in partnership with foreign governments (e.g. trade secrets theft). What's deeply alarming is the movement towards a UK-style system of ISP blocks against objectionable foreign content.

>A website is actively violating US law, didn't show up to defend itself,

Presuming, of course, that the US has jurisdiction over the whole internet.

Yes, yes, we all understand that Scihub is thumbing the nose at copyright. On the other hand, how is the nation served by scientific journals held behind excessive paywalls? What Elsevier are really doing is using public resources to keep their income going. That can't be correct either.

"immoral but not illegal" as usual

Don't get me started. I just got off the phone discussing tenure requirements with the chair of a very bad department at a 4-year school in the Southern US. The criterion is a certain number of publications.

Student performance at that institution is so terrible that you either use pay-to-publish journals (can't call them predatory, if you publish there you are the customer, not the prey) or you use Elsevier's bottom-of-barrel publish-anything journals.

This is the game you have to play to keep the income going, and Elsevier enables it, now with the help of the State Department, on the backs of the taxpayer.