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What bigger guns do publishers have to use against sci-hub that they haven't used yet? They have already used lawsuits against sci-hub and getting their domain

What bigger guns do publishers have to use against sci-hub that they haven't used yet? They have already used lawsuits against sci-hub and getting their domain names blocked in jurisdictions where that sort of thing can happen. Pressuring for IP-address blocks across different ISPs? Finally, sci-hub is accessible via .onion through Tor. Maybe that's not a viable access method for the general public, but the sort of people who read a lot of research articles can jump through the hoop of setting up Tor Browser if that's what they need to keep using sci-hub.

jrochkind1 8y ago
> Finally, sci-hub is accessible via .onion through Tor. Maybe that's not a viable access method for the general public, but the sort of people who read a lot of research articles can jump through the hoop of setting up Tor Browser if that's what they need to keep using sci-hub Have you done or read much UX analysis with academics? They do _not_ tend to be adepts at things like tor browser. Not even in "hard-science" disciplines. Some are, some aren't. They don't want to jump through any hoops at all, they see getting/finding articles as a necessary evil, mostly to get citations to put in papers. They are busy, and have no time for any extra hoops, and aren't really interested in learning new tools for accessing articles. In fact that's WHY they are using sci-hub, simply because it's the quickest lowest barrier way to get the stuff, without having to learn any special tools. I'm not sure either what bigger guns Elsevier has, but they'll try to figure it out. They have not yet tried to go against _authors_ for sharing the articles they wrote, but Elsevier has copyright or exclusive license to distribute. Or against individual academics for consuming pirated articles. (You know the emails/letters you get if you're torrenting a movie from piratebay without a VPN or what have you? Nobody has ever sent one to an academic for sharing or downloading an article... yet).
- philipkglass 8y ago
  They have not yet tried to go against _authors_ for sharing the articles they wrote, but Elsevier has copyright or exclusive license to distribute. I can see that applying to sites like researchgate, but AFAICT there's no way for an individual (author or not) to upload a missing paper to sci-hub. If the paper isn't there already, looking for it triggers an automatic retrieval-and-storage process that relies on contributed institutional logins. You can't just choose as an individual to upload a currently-missing paper. The watermarking on various papers could tie them back to institutions -- and in some cases to individuals, with the institution's cooperation -- but even the watermarking would be easy enough to strip out from the PDF if sci-hub needed to. I've done it before. Elsevier won't know whether individuals downloaded anything from sci-hub without network operator cooperation. Since it's not P2P there's no public traffic that third parties can use to tie individuals to the site.
  - jrochkind1 8y ago
    > contributed institutional logins That is surely a violation of several different usage agreements. > Elsevier won't know whether individuals downloaded anything from sci-hub without network operator cooperation. Per perhaps _institutional_ cooperation, from the institutions that those logins belong to. Elsevier could try to compel that as part of those institutions contracts.
    - philipkglass 8y ago
      That is surely a violation of several different usage agreements. Certainly. Institutions don't hate this as much as publishers, but it endangers institutions' access to publisher content and there are some who will work with publishers to find violators. That said, it may still be pretty hard to track if sci-hub's backend retrieval process that uses institutional accounts was written with care. I think that sci-hub may already be removing watermarks from papers now. I know that I've seen watermarked papers there before ("Downloaded from XYZ University at yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss"). I just tried retrieving several recent papers in Elsevier, Springer, and Wiley journals from sci-hub. None of them showed watermarks.
- palunon 8y ago
  > Elsevier has copyright or exclusive license to distribute If I understand correctly, Elsevier only has (shared) copyright and the exclusive license on the published version of the paper, not on the pre-review version.

jrochkind1 8y ago

> Finally, sci-hub is accessible via .onion through Tor. Maybe that's not a viable access method for the general public, but the sort of people who read a lot of research articles can jump through the hoop of setting up Tor Browser if that's what they need to keep using sci-hub Have you done or read much UX analysis with academics? They do _not_ tend to be adepts at things like tor browser. Not even in "hard-science" disciplines. Some are, some aren't. They don't want to jump through any hoops at all, they see getting/finding articles as a necessary evil, mostly to get citations to put in papers. They are busy, and have no time for any extra hoops, and aren't really interested in learning new tools for accessing articles. In fact that's WHY they are using sci-hub, simply because it's the quickest lowest barrier way to get the stuff, without having to learn any special tools. I'm not sure either what bigger guns Elsevier has, but they'll try to figure it out. They have not yet tried to go against _authors_ for sharing the articles they wrote, but Elsevier has copyright or exclusive license to distribute. Or against individual academics for consuming pirated articles. (You know the emails/letters you get if you're torrenting a movie from piratebay without a VPN or what have you? Nobody has ever sent one to an academic for sharing or downloading an article... yet).

philipkglass 8y ago
They have not yet tried to go against _authors_ for sharing the articles they wrote, but Elsevier has copyright or exclusive license to distribute. I can see that applying to sites like researchgate, but AFAICT there's no way for an individual (author or not) to upload a missing paper to sci-hub. If the paper isn't there already, looking for it triggers an automatic retrieval-and-storage process that relies on contributed institutional logins. You can't just choose as an individual to upload a currently-missing paper. The watermarking on various papers could tie them back to institutions -- and in some cases to individuals, with the institution's cooperation -- but even the watermarking would be easy enough to strip out from the PDF if sci-hub needed to. I've done it before. Elsevier won't know whether individuals downloaded anything from sci-hub without network operator cooperation. Since it's not P2P there's no public traffic that third parties can use to tie individuals to the site.
- jrochkind1 8y ago
  > contributed institutional logins That is surely a violation of several different usage agreements. > Elsevier won't know whether individuals downloaded anything from sci-hub without network operator cooperation. Per perhaps _institutional_ cooperation, from the institutions that those logins belong to. Elsevier could try to compel that as part of those institutions contracts.
  - philipkglass 8y ago
    That is surely a violation of several different usage agreements. Certainly. Institutions don't hate this as much as publishers, but it endangers institutions' access to publisher content and there are some who will work with publishers to find violators. That said, it may still be pretty hard to track if sci-hub's backend retrieval process that uses institutional accounts was written with care. I think that sci-hub may already be removing watermarks from papers now. I know that I've seen watermarked papers there before ("Downloaded from XYZ University at yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss"). I just tried retrieving several recent papers in Elsevier, Springer, and Wiley journals from sci-hub. None of them showed watermarks.
palunon 8y ago
> Elsevier has copyright or exclusive license to distribute If I understand correctly, Elsevier only has (shared) copyright and the exclusive license on the published version of the paper, not on the pre-review version.