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Sci-Hub Founder Criticizes Sudden Twitter Ban over “Counterfeit” Content

615 points by prvc 6y ago

mam2 6y ago
I can't imagine some working on banning sci hub and thinking it's "a good thing".
- yoz-y 6y ago
  Why? For somebody not familiar with how research publishing works it might just look like xeroxing books.
  - mam2 6y ago
    > somebody not familiar with how research publishing Yeah and not able to use google about his own work.. The debate is pretty clearly explained everywhere. That said I have, more controversially, the same opinion about movie piracy. In general don't understand how you can feel good defending Goliath vs David. (The cinema industry never earnt so much money so far, at least pre-covid).
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Ironically, xeroxing books is a pretty similar case, in that it's commonly done to school and university textbooks, because publishers are running similar rackets. It's hard to ethically justify fighting that either.
    - yoz-y 6y ago
      It might be. At my university all material was made by the profs at the school and distributed for free. But I've heard of schools where teachers force students to buy the books they have themselves written. My point wasn't that xeroxing books is good or bad, just that coming up with arguments against it is easy and so is for research paper piracy. Having worked for a while in research, I absolutely condone what sci-hub does and used it many times.
msandford 6y ago
I'm not sure how that fits within the counterfeit rule. If they weren't the real papers at scihub wouldn't it be all OK? The issue seems to be that the problem (according to publishers) is that the real papers are available not behind a pay wall. The issue here isn't that the users of scihub are being defrauded by thinking they're ordering Prada and instead getting knockoffs. Not saying I endorse scihub BTW, just that the excuse given doesn't jive at all with reality.
- FabHK 6y ago
  Interesting point. You could argue that a (good) counterfeit Louis Vuitton bag or Rolex provides the same functionality as the original, without the 90% tax to the rights holder. So, maybe the situation is quite analog: The paper you download is actually more or less the same as the original, but you haven't paid the rights holder, so it's counterfeit.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    It isn't. You're getting literally the same paper. It's like I bought a bunch of Louis Vuitton bags and, for some reason, decided to sell them off for a fraction of a price. If you bought one from me, you'd buy an original bag, not a counterfeit one.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
xnyan 6y ago
Rights holders have been trying to get rid of sites like the pirate bay for more than a decade, and if anything PB is easier to find and more reliable to use than ever before. If they really want change, it's time for them to dispassionately consider their situation. The way to "beat" piracy is to consider it as a competitor, which it is. When I was a kid, everyone downloaded raw mp3s and now that number is a fraction of a fraction because there's 1) YouTube and 2) Spotify et al. You can listen to music all day with ads and not pay a cent, or you can pay a reasonable fee and get all the HQ music you can eat without ads. Publishers continue to screw content makers, but that's another conversation. Just trying to ban pirate sources is a wonderful dream for publishers for sure, but there's no way it can work. Scientific papers are just too easy to share, the need for them high, and the current pricing too insane for it to be otherwise.
- jszymborski 6y ago
  This case is unlike movie or music distribution in there has been convenient online distribution of papers since arguably the dawn of the internet (ok, maybe "convenient" came later). The difference is, the journal publisher groups realised they can continue charging extortionary prices and get rid of the competition of "free" paper websites by suing everything that moved. Academics, generally getting slightly-less-than-free copies of the papers at their institutions and generally being apathetic about their universities being extorted, created a gulf and precluded any kind of pirate culture. But publishers have since become emboldened, prices have risen, the inequality access has been increasingly advocated for and brought to light, and the open access journals had a bit of momentum for moment. Honestly, if you ask me, the solution here is pretty simple (at least in some fields). Negotiate (if it's not already granted) the permission to publish manuscripts and pre-prints. Submit them to ArXiV or Bio/MedRxiv, or whatever repository. This doesn't tackle the issue of academics paying publishers to send emails to other academics who in turn work for free to review papers, but one battle at a time.
  - dcomp 6y ago
    Also when I was in academia (masters). If my university didn't subscribe to a journal (and it wasn't available via an inter-library loan (In the UK you can ask for a journal from another university)). I would just shoot an email to the author asking for a copy Edit: Actually I usually sent emails even when we did have a hard copy but no online access. Just because I couldn't be bothered to find the physical copy
prionassembly 6y ago
Will the new American administration (I'm not an American and should have no bone on American politics, but this is how the world works) will significantly enable Twitbookgle to exert powers they did not under Trumpism?
- criddell 6y ago
  What powers did they not exert during the Trump administration?
  - swebs 6y ago
    Trump repeatedly chastised them for their censorship policies and the threat of additional legislation was always over their head. Now that the politicians in power are the ones allied with the tech giants, there's little stopping them (the tech giants) from going full 1984.
  - prionassembly 6y ago
    That's exactly my question: are they going to acquire new powers that we didn't know existed?
    - Bedon292 6y ago
      If anything I feel its more likely that they will face additional scrutiny. My understanding is the Democrats want more anti-trust laws, and are more likely to break up the big tech companies. Not sure how that might affect Twitter, but Apple, Google (Alphabet), Facebook, and Amazon are probably going to face a lot of additional issues. https://apnews.com/article/technology-50e69e921c6699a3edbd730c12292436 https://apnews.com/article/technology-50e69e921c6699a3edbd73...
      - AlexandrB 6y ago
        This might have been political posturing. The Obama administration was very cozy with SV and there's significant influence from big tech on Biden's administration[1]. Only time will tell. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/21/big-techs-stealth-push-to-influence-the-biden-administration.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/21/big-techs-stealth-push-to-in...
joelthelion 6y ago
At some point we need to stop the hypocrisy, recognize that SciHub is too valuable to the community to be shut down, and fix laws so that it becomes either legal or useless. That's no easy task, but it's much better than having scientists from all over the world rely on it while simultaneously pretending they are dangerous criminals.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  SciHub doesn't have value so much as Elsevier has "anti-value". Scihub is a space without the negative effect of Elsevier gatekeeping, thus seeming to have a net positive effect. Instead of doing anything at all with SciHub, we should instead fight Elsevier. First blow should be on the basis that Elsevier is anti-competitive, by the logic that if wasn't there would be no reason for it to succeed at all. Second blow should be a that any partially federal funded work would be required to be publicly available, or at least not derive any profit from discouraging public access.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    I don't get it, if there wasn't a SciHub where would a person get free-gratis access to all scientific papers in one place (without being tracked AFAIAA, nor advertised to!). SciHub seems to have value beyond any "anti-value" Elsevier has. SciHub use is tortuous infringement in my country, this comment is in not way an endorsement of its use.
    - semi-extrinsic 6y ago
      ArXiv and a long list of other free repositories are way better than SciHub for legally sharing free-gratis access to scientific papers. Yes there are many such repositories, but all are indexed e.g. by Google Scholar.
      - TheTrotters 6y ago
        Why are they better than one place that has everything? (Asking in good faith)
pera 6y ago
An official Sci-Hub Mastodon instance could be pretty interesting :)
temac 6y ago
Digital copyright questions have nothing to do with counterfeing...
hagibborim 6y ago
I donated ~$300 to SciHub and encourage you all to donate as well. Please give what you can, her bitcoin address can be found at the bottom of the homepage. https://sci-hub.do/ https://sci-hub.do/
- breck 6y ago
  Also please post somewhere your support of her with your real name, and reach out with kind words. Every PhD I know relies on this site, but more importantly 10x+ more people I know who are otherwise "outside" academia rely on this site. How many of the world's best researchers in 30 years will have turned out to get their start in research not thanks to Academia but thanks to SciHub? My guess is most of them. And make no mistake, people are trying to have her killed. "Elbakyan may be working with Russian military intelligence. The story says she may have been stealing US military secrets from defense contractors" I just copy/pasted this horseshit from Elsevier’s website right now. Let's provide her with the support and strength to win this war.
  - hagibborim 6y ago
    Very good point, and I didn't know that bit of slander against her.
  - mariuolo 6y ago
    > "Elbakyan may be working with Russian military intelligence. The story says she may have been stealing US military secrets from defense contractors" And how is sci-hub connected to that?
    - hedora 6y ago
      The same way the false [1] allegations against Julian Assange are related to Wikileaks. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22201381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22201381
    - rarefied_tomato 6y ago
      I'm not aware of any facts supporting Elsevier's accusation, and I would characterize it as intentional disinformation. Elbakyan runs Sci-Hub.
m3kw9 6y ago
Thought they have mirrors?
MikusR 6y ago
Isn't Twitter a private organization that can ban anyone they want?
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  Yes and we're private citizens who can criticize it all we want for banning people we like. So the world turns.
- jjbinx007 6y ago
  Yes. What a shame there aren't more decentralised services like email, the web and Usenet (which is now pretty much dead). Twitter can do pretty much what it wants to who it wants, and they don't have to give a reason. Maybe you get banned due to an algorithm mistake. Or an individual contracted by Twitter who doesn't like what you said. Or maybe they misunderstand what you said due to cultural differences. I found my time on Twitter was fighting against a US-biased culture, and what I consider friendly banter with friends can be misconstrued as abuse by some random moderator or algorithm.
  - djsumdog 6y ago
    Start using ActivityPub (Mastodon/Pleroma/PeerTube/PixelFed/etc.) If takes people in tech using it first to build momentum.
- shiado 6y ago
  Yes and? Sci-Hub is a resource whose value transcends American IP orthodoxy and their contributions to Twitter are a gain for humanity. If Twitter can platform totalitarian governments that commit crimes against humanity why not a mere IP violator?
- sneak 6y ago
  Yup. Private citizens and organizations can do many shameful, reprehensible things, such as engaging in arbitrary (and legal) censorship, such as what Twitter does. Only assholes decide unilaterally for other adults what they're allowed to see and read.
mc32 6y ago
Let’s suppose sci-hub distributes unauthorized content. It’s still not counterfeit. In the physical world I believe this is called the grey market. It’s legit, just not via official distribution channels. Anyhow, another case of Twitter capriciously moderating content and quelling free speech. The worst part though is that Twitter HQ sets the policy to whatever suits their fancy. They are not beholden to their users or any other oversight.
- ben509 6y ago
  I chceked their counterfeit policy[1] to confirm; it's pretty clear and hews to the plain meaning of the word: > Counterfeit goods are goods, including digital goods, that are promoted, sold, or otherwise distributed using a trademark or brand that is identical to, or substantially indistinguishable from, the registered trademark or brand of another, without authorization from the trademark or brand owner. Counterfeit goods attempt to deceive consumers into believing the counterfeit is a genuine product of the brand owner, or to represent themselves as faux, replicas or imitations of the genuine product. An unauthorized copy simply isn't counterfeit unless it is promoted as official. There's a legit copyright argument, but Twitter's rules (correctly) don't apply unless the copyrighted material is on Twitter. > Anyhow, another case of Twitter capriciously moderating content and quelling free speech. The worst part though is that Twitter HQ sets the policy to whatever suits their fancy. The suppression of speech is the symptom here, not the root problem. I doubt Twitter is doing this because they have an axe to grind against SciHub. Likely, an executive got a call from the journals and then told the moderation teams to figure out how to ban them. I think the root issue is that tech/media companies are becoming a bit of a shadow-government where people with influence can shut down their competitors. And the journals probably feel they were entirely justified in "lobbying" Twitter, since SciHub is violating their copyright. This isn't new, businesses have always made private agreements to screw each other, and the only reason we don't have smoke-filled back rooms these day is people don't smoke much. What's new is that big information / infrastructure / financial platforms are a far more influential feature of the modern political economy. [1]: https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/counterfeit-goods-policy https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/counterfeit-g...
  - 6y ago
illustriousbear 6y ago
Hackernews comments were generally onboard with Twitter banning Trump for controversial tweets that can be considered as incitement. As much as I like Sci-Hub, it is clearly a service that disregards and breaches copyright. If you advocate for Twitter exercising a heavy hand on greyer areas (Trump), you shouldn’t be surprised when they do the same for clear breaches of their TOS/Laws (SciHub). It scares me that these big tech companies are becoming arbitrators for what many people see. The worst part is that it is allowing the US oligarchy to further influence the rest of the world too.
- MauranKilom 6y ago
  I can get behind the sentiment of your post, but could you detail how the Sci-Hub twitter account has breached Twitter TOS? Contrast that with Trump who has been very clearly violating twitter TOS on a daily basis.
  - djsumdog 6y ago
    > Trump who has been very clearly violating twitter TOS on a daily basis How has Trump violated Twitter's TOS on a daily basis? It feels like every policy that has been put up is typically put up specifically for Trump. I don't see how people can post photos of Kathy Griffin showing a decapitated Trump head as being kosher, or CNN's Como saying violent protest is constitutionally protected, and claim Trump is violating TOS. It's hypocrisy.
    - boredumb 6y ago
      hypocrisy is the new honesty
    - Bedon292 6y ago
      Posting election misinformation violates Twitter ToS, and since the election he has posted something violating that policy (in their judgment) if not every day, very close to it. These policies have been around since before the election [1]. These examples don't appear to be hypocritical to me on the surface, but I am certainly open to more information. Many people are not happy with Kathy Griffin doing that, on both sides. And I am honestly not sure how Cuomo saying that violates anything, could you explain? Or point me in the direction of it? I had not heard about it. If it does violate their ToS, then he should have received a suspension or at least warning too. [1] https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/civic-integrity-policy-update.html https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/civic-int... https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/2020-election-changes.html https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/2020-elec...
hagibborim 6y ago
How can Sci-Hub and LibGen be mirrored? When I last looked into it, it was closed source.
- notriddle 6y ago
  Sci-Hub is closed source. LibGen is open source, but published as code drops rather than using an actual VCS. Download the web app from http://gen.lib.rus.ec/code/libgen_legacy_catalog_20190831.rar http://gen.lib.rus.ec/code/libgen_legacy_catalog_20190831.ra... Download the database from http://gen.lib.rus.ec/dbdumps/ http://gen.lib.rus.ec/dbdumps/
  - j-james 6y ago
    Sci-Hub is also mirrored to Library Genesis.
- kaba0 6y ago
  The important part is not the source code but the content. As for libgen, they provide torrents per 1000 (I think) books, so maybe downloading and seeding those could be helpful? (But I heard they recently created IPFS mirros as well)
  - hagibborim 6y ago
    Both are important here. When I was looking into it, the data was useless without the source code. The names are obfuscated and impossible to query without the application source plus the map of file names to document metadata. I would be unable to mirror LibGen and Sci-Hub with what is currently available. I would be ECSTATIC to be proven wrong.
    - kaba0 6y ago
      Oh yeah, you are right. But in the case of libgen, other’s mentioned it is open source.
mariuolo 6y ago
Couldn't they switch to vkontakte?
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  There's a VK account already. https://vk.com/sci_hub?w=wall-36928352_5896 https://vk.com/sci_hub?w=wall-36928352_5896 Obvious global accessibility conerns are obvious.
cute_boi 6y ago
Twitter is slowly being more dangerous day by day. Scihub is too valuable and I haven't seen any high level researcher who haven't used scihub. We need to stop oligarchy . Knowledge should be avail free to those people who can't afford. Government, Corporation please stop pushing humanity to backward direction.
- mainstreemm 6y ago
  Under the new Administration Twitter will assuredly ban anyone who doesn't appropriately mouth the narrative. The bans are already picking up steam, and have been since the election. Trump: gone. Khamenei? Still tweeting about how America is the devil and the Holocaust wasn't real. Where's the explainer under this tweet [0] telling me that this information is disputed wrongthink? 0 https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1321494146989907969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1321494146989907969?r...
  - kahrl 6y ago
    Please check the url at the top of your browser. If it begins with "news.ycombinator.com" you're in the wrong place. Try posting here instead: https://parler.com/ https://parler.com/
    - mainstreemm 6y ago
      Wow really, pointing out that Twitter won't ban an open Holocaust denier who constantly pushes anti-Semitic falsehoods makes me .. what, hard right now? Fuck you. I am on the wrong website. This website is a shithole. Ban me, dang. This website is like a Leftist Parler. So's Twitter. So's Reddit. I don't have accounts on any of those sites. Enjoy your filter bubbles. I'll go back to talking to my loved ones in private chats.
    - agiroth 6y ago
      This is uncalled for. Pointing out Twitter's political bias on a technology forum is relevant, whether you agree with the comment or not.
    - 6y ago
0goel0 6y ago
Compare that to Trump's 12-hour ban after causing real-world violence and sedition.
orange_tee 6y ago
Don't worry Alexandra. Twitter are just jealous because their platform is just a toy for imbeciles to shout inanities on the internet. Very few websites can claim to have achieved more good for the world than sci-hub.
- pieter_mj 6y ago
  Alexandra for the Nobel peace price! The opportunities she creates to do good in society are unmatched. No sarcasm. Seriously, we should make it happen.
rootsudo 6y ago
Why do we even allow twitter this power. Stop using twitter.
- meekmockmook 6y ago
  Our country would not be in this mess if antitrust laws were used to bust up Facebook, Google, and Twitter years ago. Our leaders were all but bribed by the VCs and their lobbyists to look the other way while our social norms and sense of right and wrong were destroyed by malicious algorithms.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- andrewprock 6y ago
  This is certainly the best advice. Personally I find Twitter to be the worst of the worst forum formats, and it bugles my mind that anyone actually enjoys using it.
  - asdff 6y ago
    People are addicted to memes and depressing news, cut off the head of twitter and two more will take its place scratching the same primal itch.
- rvz 6y ago
  I don't see the point of why Twitter or Facebook should even exist if they have this amount of power. You're setting yourself up to being witch-hunted down like in the middle-ages or being the new face of a most wanted poster all over the town square if you say or do the wrong thing. It's only going to get worse if you keep using social media. Delete your accounts while you can.
- asdff 6y ago
  It's their website, they can ultimately do what they please. You have this power too, if you wrote your own website. So does dang here.
TimMurnaghan 6y ago
In the end this could work out well. People go where the stuff that they want is. I occasionally dust off an old twitter account when I want to reach an org which is otherwise hiding any means of human contact. So if scihub does manage to make a meaningful presence somewhere like mastodon that's all for the good - and just hastens the decline of twitter.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  Is there any reason to believe mastodon is “better” than twitter though? I don’t have a whole lot of nice things to say about twitter and I’m neither a twitter nor mastodon user but I don’t really understand how “decentralized federation” solves any of twitter’s major issues? And it seems like it would come with its own set of issues when it isn’t centralized.
  - talhah 6y ago
    > I don’t really understand how “decentralized federation” solves any of twitter’s major issues? Scihub can host their own mastodon instance which means they have power of moderation, Twitter cannot impose whatever rules they want to. Being federated means posts on Scihub can be seen on other mastodon instances. This allows Scihub to allow a select few users to join their instance without limiting visibility of their content as it can still be seen and interacted with through another mastodon instance.
hagibborim 6y ago
What can tech workers do to help this effort? Either through supporting this particular project or through other applications of their skills?
meekmockmook 6y ago
The US Government and Big Tech oligarchs learned nothing from the death of Aaron Swartz. Horrific.
jjk166 6y ago
Someone really needs to create an alternative to impact factor that doesn't heavily bias in favor of long established paid journals. Elsevier and other such journal publishers rely on business models that drive up the cost of education, reduce access to knowledge, and skew the incentives of researchers - in short they make humanity collectively dumber and we all suffer for it. It would be in everyone's best interest for researchers to switch over to publishing in free journals, we'd be good, but that won't happen so long as the free journals are labelled inferior to the paid ones, and thus researchers are penalized for bucking the system.
bra-ket 6y ago
Long overdue but going to donate to Sci-hub today, first time since I started using in 2014, it’s an invaluable resource for independent research.
f430 6y ago
I wish there was a decentralized scalable version of Twitter, Facebook, Youtube. It would run off our mobile devices and PC sort of like bitorrent. I am aware of webtorrent (web based torrenting p2p) for videos and such but still nothing in production. IMHO, the next person that comes up with a highly scalable, decentralized, widely distributed mesh network of devices to securely transfer files between peers will not be a rich man but he would be a hero, I personally would donate a large chunk of money just to keep it afloat for others. Sort of like a "public funded public utility" software.
- luto 6y ago
  twitter: https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/ youtube: https://joinpeertube.org/ https://joinpeertube.org/ The fediverse checks many of the boxes you mentioned. While I personally enjoy using it, it still lacks usability for many people, I think.
  - j-james 6y ago
    facebook: https://pleroma.social/ https://pleroma.social/ instagram: https://pixelfed.org/ https://pixelfed.org/ blogger: https://write.as/ https://write.as/ soundcloud: https://funkwhale.audio/ https://funkwhale.audio/ At the end of the day, though, the Fediverse is just like any other social network - most people join because their friends or people they know have.
    - f430 6y ago
      What if you could use the existing Facebook, Youtube, Instagram clients and seamlessly be connected to both the "centralized content from FANG" and "decentralized content from FEDIVERSE" ? If your content gets censored it would be archived on the fallback fediverse, therefore neutralizing their ban hammer?
      - j-james 6y ago
        That'd be very cool, but you then run into the data collection issues of all of those platforms. Many Fediverse users aren't so much concerned with being censored by Big Tech as they are with being hit with targeted advertising. Really, I'd be happy with a way to seamlessly follow friends / public figures that are on FANG + Twitter, even if it's a one way road.
jancsika 6y ago
Suppose Bob publicly claims to possess the Sci-Hub db. Alexandra challenges this publicly by sending a bunch of randomized small "slices" of the db to be hashed. Bob publicly broadcasts the requested hashes, and Alexandra publicly claims they all match. (Also, assume the hash-checker is publicly available and anyone who dares can use it to check their own copy of the db and verify Bob's hashes.) If this is the extent of Bob's network activity, can Bob get in trouble in the U.S.?
type0 6y ago
Twitter is the counterfeit of Jaiku and should be closed for the benefit of all the humanity.
musicale 6y ago
Researchers usually want visibility and impact, and paywalls are in opposition to both. Moreover, most academic research in the US is government funded, so citizens deserve access to publications.
3131s 6y ago
The largest repository of knowledge in the history of humanity, gotta make sure we destroy that!
3131s 6y ago
Intellectual property laws are going to be more deadly than usual in the next few years. The populations of many countries won't get vaccines until 2022 and beyond, it's completely unnecessary and immoral.
yantrams 6y ago
Apologies in advance for side tracking the discussion. I came across this post on r/india looking for a volunteer Russian Interpreter for a talk by Alexandra Elbakyan, the founder of Sci-Hub. If anyone is interested, please reach out to the OP of https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/kpl5l4/looking_for_a_russian_to_english_interpreter/ https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/kpl5l4/looking_for_a...
hemantv 6y ago
Wait until you are on the wrong side of these ideologues. These are people not some principled institutions.

615 points by prvc 6y ago

mam2 6y ago

I can't imagine some working on banning sci hub and thinking it's "a good thing".

yoz-y 6y ago
Why? For somebody not familiar with how research publishing works it might just look like xeroxing books.
- mam2 6y ago
  > somebody not familiar with how research publishing Yeah and not able to use google about his own work.. The debate is pretty clearly explained everywhere. That said I have, more controversially, the same opinion about movie piracy. In general don't understand how you can feel good defending Goliath vs David. (The cinema industry never earnt so much money so far, at least pre-covid).
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  Ironically, xeroxing books is a pretty similar case, in that it's commonly done to school and university textbooks, because publishers are running similar rackets. It's hard to ethically justify fighting that either.
  - yoz-y 6y ago
    It might be. At my university all material was made by the profs at the school and distributed for free. But I've heard of schools where teachers force students to buy the books they have themselves written. My point wasn't that xeroxing books is good or bad, just that coming up with arguments against it is easy and so is for research paper piracy. Having worked for a while in research, I absolutely condone what sci-hub does and used it many times.

msandford 6y ago

I'm not sure how that fits within the counterfeit rule. If they weren't the real papers at scihub wouldn't it be all OK? The issue seems to be that the problem (according to publishers) is that the real papers are available not behind a pay wall. The issue here isn't that the users of scihub are being defrauded by thinking they're ordering Prada and instead getting knockoffs. Not saying I endorse scihub BTW, just that the excuse given doesn't jive at all with reality.

FabHK 6y ago
Interesting point. You could argue that a (good) counterfeit Louis Vuitton bag or Rolex provides the same functionality as the original, without the 90% tax to the rights holder. So, maybe the situation is quite analog: The paper you download is actually more or less the same as the original, but you haven't paid the rights holder, so it's counterfeit.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  It isn't. You're getting literally the same paper. It's like I bought a bunch of Louis Vuitton bags and, for some reason, decided to sell them off for a fraction of a price. If you bought one from me, you'd buy an original bag, not a counterfeit one.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

xnyan 6y ago

Rights holders have been trying to get rid of sites like the pirate bay for more than a decade, and if anything PB is easier to find and more reliable to use than ever before. If they really want change, it's time for them to dispassionately consider their situation. The way to "beat" piracy is to consider it as a competitor, which it is. When I was a kid, everyone downloaded raw mp3s and now that number is a fraction of a fraction because there's 1) YouTube and 2) Spotify et al. You can listen to music all day with ads and not pay a cent, or you can pay a reasonable fee and get all the HQ music you can eat without ads. Publishers continue to screw content makers, but that's another conversation. Just trying to ban pirate sources is a wonderful dream for publishers for sure, but there's no way it can work. Scientific papers are just too easy to share, the need for them high, and the current pricing too insane for it to be otherwise.

jszymborski 6y ago
This case is unlike movie or music distribution in there has been convenient online distribution of papers since arguably the dawn of the internet (ok, maybe "convenient" came later). The difference is, the journal publisher groups realised they can continue charging extortionary prices and get rid of the competition of "free" paper websites by suing everything that moved. Academics, generally getting slightly-less-than-free copies of the papers at their institutions and generally being apathetic about their universities being extorted, created a gulf and precluded any kind of pirate culture. But publishers have since become emboldened, prices have risen, the inequality access has been increasingly advocated for and brought to light, and the open access journals had a bit of momentum for moment. Honestly, if you ask me, the solution here is pretty simple (at least in some fields). Negotiate (if it's not already granted) the permission to publish manuscripts and pre-prints. Submit them to ArXiV or Bio/MedRxiv, or whatever repository. This doesn't tackle the issue of academics paying publishers to send emails to other academics who in turn work for free to review papers, but one battle at a time.
- dcomp 6y ago
  Also when I was in academia (masters). If my university didn't subscribe to a journal (and it wasn't available via an inter-library loan (In the UK you can ask for a journal from another university)). I would just shoot an email to the author asking for a copy Edit: Actually I usually sent emails even when we did have a hard copy but no online access. Just because I couldn't be bothered to find the physical copy

prionassembly 6y ago

Will the new American administration (I'm not an American and should have no bone on American politics, but this is how the world works) will significantly enable Twitbookgle to exert powers they did not under Trumpism?

criddell 6y ago
What powers did they not exert during the Trump administration?
- swebs 6y ago
  Trump repeatedly chastised them for their censorship policies and the threat of additional legislation was always over their head. Now that the politicians in power are the ones allied with the tech giants, there's little stopping them (the tech giants) from going full 1984.
- prionassembly 6y ago
  That's exactly my question: are they going to acquire new powers that we didn't know existed?
  - Bedon292 6y ago
    If anything I feel its more likely that they will face additional scrutiny. My understanding is the Democrats want more anti-trust laws, and are more likely to break up the big tech companies. Not sure how that might affect Twitter, but Apple, Google (Alphabet), Facebook, and Amazon are probably going to face a lot of additional issues. https://apnews.com/article/technology-50e69e921c6699a3edbd730c12292436 https://apnews.com/article/technology-50e69e921c6699a3edbd73...
    - AlexandrB 6y ago
      This might have been political posturing. The Obama administration was very cozy with SV and there's significant influence from big tech on Biden's administration[1]. Only time will tell. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/21/big-techs-stealth-push-to-influence-the-biden-administration.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/21/big-techs-stealth-push-to-in...

joelthelion 6y ago

At some point we need to stop the hypocrisy, recognize that SciHub is too valuable to the community to be shut down, and fix laws so that it becomes either legal or useless. That's no easy task, but it's much better than having scientists from all over the world rely on it while simultaneously pretending they are dangerous criminals.

Chris2048 6y ago
SciHub doesn't have value so much as Elsevier has "anti-value". Scihub is a space without the negative effect of Elsevier gatekeeping, thus seeming to have a net positive effect. Instead of doing anything at all with SciHub, we should instead fight Elsevier. First blow should be on the basis that Elsevier is anti-competitive, by the logic that if wasn't there would be no reason for it to succeed at all. Second blow should be a that any partially federal funded work would be required to be publicly available, or at least not derive any profit from discouraging public access.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  I don't get it, if there wasn't a SciHub where would a person get free-gratis access to all scientific papers in one place (without being tracked AFAIAA, nor advertised to!). SciHub seems to have value beyond any "anti-value" Elsevier has. SciHub use is tortuous infringement in my country, this comment is in not way an endorsement of its use.
  - semi-extrinsic 6y ago
    ArXiv and a long list of other free repositories are way better than SciHub for legally sharing free-gratis access to scientific papers. Yes there are many such repositories, but all are indexed e.g. by Google Scholar.
    - TheTrotters 6y ago
      Why are they better than one place that has everything? (Asking in good faith)

pera 6y ago

An official Sci-Hub Mastodon instance could be pretty interesting :)

temac 6y ago

Digital copyright questions have nothing to do with counterfeing...

hagibborim 6y ago

I donated ~$300 to SciHub and encourage you all to donate as well. Please give what you can, her bitcoin address can be found at the bottom of the homepage. https://sci-hub.do/ https://sci-hub.do/

breck 6y ago
Also please post somewhere your support of her with your real name, and reach out with kind words. Every PhD I know relies on this site, but more importantly 10x+ more people I know who are otherwise "outside" academia rely on this site. How many of the world's best researchers in 30 years will have turned out to get their start in research not thanks to Academia but thanks to SciHub? My guess is most of them. And make no mistake, people are trying to have her killed. "Elbakyan may be working with Russian military intelligence. The story says she may have been stealing US military secrets from defense contractors" I just copy/pasted this horseshit from Elsevier’s website right now. Let's provide her with the support and strength to win this war.
- hagibborim 6y ago
  Very good point, and I didn't know that bit of slander against her.
- mariuolo 6y ago
  > "Elbakyan may be working with Russian military intelligence. The story says she may have been stealing US military secrets from defense contractors" And how is sci-hub connected to that?
  - hedora 6y ago
    The same way the false [1] allegations against Julian Assange are related to Wikileaks. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22201381 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22201381
  - rarefied_tomato 6y ago
    I'm not aware of any facts supporting Elsevier's accusation, and I would characterize it as intentional disinformation. Elbakyan runs Sci-Hub.

m3kw9 6y ago

Thought they have mirrors?

MikusR 6y ago

Isn't Twitter a private organization that can ban anyone they want?

vorpalhex 6y ago
Yes and we're private citizens who can criticize it all we want for banning people we like. So the world turns.
jjbinx007 6y ago
Yes. What a shame there aren't more decentralised services like email, the web and Usenet (which is now pretty much dead). Twitter can do pretty much what it wants to who it wants, and they don't have to give a reason. Maybe you get banned due to an algorithm mistake. Or an individual contracted by Twitter who doesn't like what you said. Or maybe they misunderstand what you said due to cultural differences. I found my time on Twitter was fighting against a US-biased culture, and what I consider friendly banter with friends can be misconstrued as abuse by some random moderator or algorithm.
- djsumdog 6y ago
  Start using ActivityPub (Mastodon/Pleroma/PeerTube/PixelFed/etc.) If takes people in tech using it first to build momentum.
shiado 6y ago
Yes and? Sci-Hub is a resource whose value transcends American IP orthodoxy and their contributions to Twitter are a gain for humanity. If Twitter can platform totalitarian governments that commit crimes against humanity why not a mere IP violator?
sneak 6y ago
Yup. Private citizens and organizations can do many shameful, reprehensible things, such as engaging in arbitrary (and legal) censorship, such as what Twitter does. Only assholes decide unilaterally for other adults what they're allowed to see and read.

mc32 6y ago

Let’s suppose sci-hub distributes unauthorized content. It’s still not counterfeit. In the physical world I believe this is called the grey market. It’s legit, just not via official distribution channels. Anyhow, another case of Twitter capriciously moderating content and quelling free speech. The worst part though is that Twitter HQ sets the policy to whatever suits their fancy. They are not beholden to their users or any other oversight.

ben509 6y ago
I chceked their counterfeit policy[1] to confirm; it's pretty clear and hews to the plain meaning of the word: > Counterfeit goods are goods, including digital goods, that are promoted, sold, or otherwise distributed using a trademark or brand that is identical to, or substantially indistinguishable from, the registered trademark or brand of another, without authorization from the trademark or brand owner. Counterfeit goods attempt to deceive consumers into believing the counterfeit is a genuine product of the brand owner, or to represent themselves as faux, replicas or imitations of the genuine product. An unauthorized copy simply isn't counterfeit unless it is promoted as official. There's a legit copyright argument, but Twitter's rules (correctly) don't apply unless the copyrighted material is on Twitter. > Anyhow, another case of Twitter capriciously moderating content and quelling free speech. The worst part though is that Twitter HQ sets the policy to whatever suits their fancy. The suppression of speech is the symptom here, not the root problem. I doubt Twitter is doing this because they have an axe to grind against SciHub. Likely, an executive got a call from the journals and then told the moderation teams to figure out how to ban them. I think the root issue is that tech/media companies are becoming a bit of a shadow-government where people with influence can shut down their competitors. And the journals probably feel they were entirely justified in "lobbying" Twitter, since SciHub is violating their copyright. This isn't new, businesses have always made private agreements to screw each other, and the only reason we don't have smoke-filled back rooms these day is people don't smoke much. What's new is that big information / infrastructure / financial platforms are a far more influential feature of the modern political economy. [1]: https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/counterfeit-goods-policy https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/counterfeit-g...
- 6y ago

illustriousbear 6y ago

Hackernews comments were generally onboard with Twitter banning Trump for controversial tweets that can be considered as incitement. As much as I like Sci-Hub, it is clearly a service that disregards and breaches copyright. If you advocate for Twitter exercising a heavy hand on greyer areas (Trump), you shouldn’t be surprised when they do the same for clear breaches of their TOS/Laws (SciHub). It scares me that these big tech companies are becoming arbitrators for what many people see. The worst part is that it is allowing the US oligarchy to further influence the rest of the world too.

MauranKilom 6y ago
I can get behind the sentiment of your post, but could you detail how the Sci-Hub twitter account has breached Twitter TOS? Contrast that with Trump who has been very clearly violating twitter TOS on a daily basis.
- djsumdog 6y ago
  > Trump who has been very clearly violating twitter TOS on a daily basis How has Trump violated Twitter's TOS on a daily basis? It feels like every policy that has been put up is typically put up specifically for Trump. I don't see how people can post photos of Kathy Griffin showing a decapitated Trump head as being kosher, or CNN's Como saying violent protest is constitutionally protected, and claim Trump is violating TOS. It's hypocrisy.
  - boredumb 6y ago
    hypocrisy is the new honesty
  - Bedon292 6y ago
    Posting election misinformation violates Twitter ToS, and since the election he has posted something violating that policy (in their judgment) if not every day, very close to it. These policies have been around since before the election [1]. These examples don't appear to be hypocritical to me on the surface, but I am certainly open to more information. Many people are not happy with Kathy Griffin doing that, on both sides. And I am honestly not sure how Cuomo saying that violates anything, could you explain? Or point me in the direction of it? I had not heard about it. If it does violate their ToS, then he should have received a suspension or at least warning too. [1] https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/civic-integrity-policy-update.html https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/civic-int... https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/2020-election-changes.html https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/2020-elec...

hagibborim 6y ago

How can Sci-Hub and LibGen be mirrored? When I last looked into it, it was closed source.

notriddle 6y ago
Sci-Hub is closed source. LibGen is open source, but published as code drops rather than using an actual VCS. Download the web app from http://gen.lib.rus.ec/code/libgen_legacy_catalog_20190831.rar http://gen.lib.rus.ec/code/libgen_legacy_catalog_20190831.ra... Download the database from http://gen.lib.rus.ec/dbdumps/ http://gen.lib.rus.ec/dbdumps/
- j-james 6y ago
  Sci-Hub is also mirrored to Library Genesis.
kaba0 6y ago
The important part is not the source code but the content. As for libgen, they provide torrents per 1000 (I think) books, so maybe downloading and seeding those could be helpful? (But I heard they recently created IPFS mirros as well)
- hagibborim 6y ago
  Both are important here. When I was looking into it, the data was useless without the source code. The names are obfuscated and impossible to query without the application source plus the map of file names to document metadata. I would be unable to mirror LibGen and Sci-Hub with what is currently available. I would be ECSTATIC to be proven wrong.
  - kaba0 6y ago
    Oh yeah, you are right. But in the case of libgen, other’s mentioned it is open source.

mariuolo 6y ago

Couldn't they switch to vkontakte?

dredmorbius 6y ago
There's a VK account already. https://vk.com/sci_hub?w=wall-36928352_5896 https://vk.com/sci_hub?w=wall-36928352_5896 Obvious global accessibility conerns are obvious.

cute_boi 6y ago

Twitter is slowly being more dangerous day by day. Scihub is too valuable and I haven't seen any high level researcher who haven't used scihub. We need to stop oligarchy . Knowledge should be avail free to those people who can't afford. Government, Corporation please stop pushing humanity to backward direction.

mainstreemm 6y ago
Under the new Administration Twitter will assuredly ban anyone who doesn't appropriately mouth the narrative. The bans are already picking up steam, and have been since the election. Trump: gone. Khamenei? Still tweeting about how America is the devil and the Holocaust wasn't real. Where's the explainer under this tweet [0] telling me that this information is disputed wrongthink? 0 https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1321494146989907969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1321494146989907969?r...
- kahrl 6y ago
  Please check the url at the top of your browser. If it begins with "news.ycombinator.com" you're in the wrong place. Try posting here instead: https://parler.com/ https://parler.com/
  - mainstreemm 6y ago
    Wow really, pointing out that Twitter won't ban an open Holocaust denier who constantly pushes anti-Semitic falsehoods makes me .. what, hard right now? Fuck you. I am on the wrong website. This website is a shithole. Ban me, dang. This website is like a Leftist Parler. So's Twitter. So's Reddit. I don't have accounts on any of those sites. Enjoy your filter bubbles. I'll go back to talking to my loved ones in private chats.
  - agiroth 6y ago
    This is uncalled for. Pointing out Twitter's political bias on a technology forum is relevant, whether you agree with the comment or not.
  - 6y ago

0goel0 6y ago

Compare that to Trump's 12-hour ban after causing real-world violence and sedition.

orange_tee 6y ago

Don't worry Alexandra. Twitter are just jealous because their platform is just a toy for imbeciles to shout inanities on the internet. Very few websites can claim to have achieved more good for the world than sci-hub.

pieter_mj 6y ago
Alexandra for the Nobel peace price! The opportunities she creates to do good in society are unmatched. No sarcasm. Seriously, we should make it happen.

rootsudo 6y ago

Why do we even allow twitter this power. Stop using twitter.

meekmockmook 6y ago
Our country would not be in this mess if antitrust laws were used to bust up Facebook, Google, and Twitter years ago. Our leaders were all but bribed by the VCs and their lobbyists to look the other way while our social norms and sense of right and wrong were destroyed by malicious algorithms.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
andrewprock 6y ago
This is certainly the best advice. Personally I find Twitter to be the worst of the worst forum formats, and it bugles my mind that anyone actually enjoys using it.
- asdff 6y ago
  People are addicted to memes and depressing news, cut off the head of twitter and two more will take its place scratching the same primal itch.
rvz 6y ago
I don't see the point of why Twitter or Facebook should even exist if they have this amount of power. You're setting yourself up to being witch-hunted down like in the middle-ages or being the new face of a most wanted poster all over the town square if you say or do the wrong thing. It's only going to get worse if you keep using social media. Delete your accounts while you can.
asdff 6y ago
It's their website, they can ultimately do what they please. You have this power too, if you wrote your own website. So does dang here.

TimMurnaghan 6y ago

In the end this could work out well. People go where the stuff that they want is. I occasionally dust off an old twitter account when I want to reach an org which is otherwise hiding any means of human contact. So if scihub does manage to make a meaningful presence somewhere like mastodon that's all for the good - and just hastens the decline of twitter.

elliekelly 6y ago
Is there any reason to believe mastodon is “better” than twitter though? I don’t have a whole lot of nice things to say about twitter and I’m neither a twitter nor mastodon user but I don’t really understand how “decentralized federation” solves any of twitter’s major issues? And it seems like it would come with its own set of issues when it isn’t centralized.
- talhah 6y ago
  > I don’t really understand how “decentralized federation” solves any of twitter’s major issues? Scihub can host their own mastodon instance which means they have power of moderation, Twitter cannot impose whatever rules they want to. Being federated means posts on Scihub can be seen on other mastodon instances. This allows Scihub to allow a select few users to join their instance without limiting visibility of their content as it can still be seen and interacted with through another mastodon instance.

hagibborim 6y ago

What can tech workers do to help this effort? Either through supporting this particular project or through other applications of their skills?

meekmockmook 6y ago

The US Government and Big Tech oligarchs learned nothing from the death of Aaron Swartz. Horrific.

jjk166 6y ago

Someone really needs to create an alternative to impact factor that doesn't heavily bias in favor of long established paid journals. Elsevier and other such journal publishers rely on business models that drive up the cost of education, reduce access to knowledge, and skew the incentives of researchers - in short they make humanity collectively dumber and we all suffer for it. It would be in everyone's best interest for researchers to switch over to publishing in free journals, we'd be good, but that won't happen so long as the free journals are labelled inferior to the paid ones, and thus researchers are penalized for bucking the system.

bra-ket 6y ago

Long overdue but going to donate to Sci-hub today, first time since I started using in 2014, it’s an invaluable resource for independent research.

f430 6y ago

I wish there was a decentralized scalable version of Twitter, Facebook, Youtube. It would run off our mobile devices and PC sort of like bitorrent. I am aware of webtorrent (web based torrenting p2p) for videos and such but still nothing in production. IMHO, the next person that comes up with a highly scalable, decentralized, widely distributed mesh network of devices to securely transfer files between peers will not be a rich man but he would be a hero, I personally would donate a large chunk of money just to keep it afloat for others. Sort of like a "public funded public utility" software.

luto 6y ago
twitter: https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/ youtube: https://joinpeertube.org/ https://joinpeertube.org/ The fediverse checks many of the boxes you mentioned. While I personally enjoy using it, it still lacks usability for many people, I think.
- j-james 6y ago
  facebook: https://pleroma.social/ https://pleroma.social/ instagram: https://pixelfed.org/ https://pixelfed.org/ blogger: https://write.as/ https://write.as/ soundcloud: https://funkwhale.audio/ https://funkwhale.audio/ At the end of the day, though, the Fediverse is just like any other social network - most people join because their friends or people they know have.
  - f430 6y ago
    What if you could use the existing Facebook, Youtube, Instagram clients and seamlessly be connected to both the "centralized content from FANG" and "decentralized content from FEDIVERSE" ? If your content gets censored it would be archived on the fallback fediverse, therefore neutralizing their ban hammer?
    - j-james 6y ago
      That'd be very cool, but you then run into the data collection issues of all of those platforms. Many Fediverse users aren't so much concerned with being censored by Big Tech as they are with being hit with targeted advertising. Really, I'd be happy with a way to seamlessly follow friends / public figures that are on FANG + Twitter, even if it's a one way road.

jancsika 6y ago

Suppose Bob publicly claims to possess the Sci-Hub db. Alexandra challenges this publicly by sending a bunch of randomized small "slices" of the db to be hashed. Bob publicly broadcasts the requested hashes, and Alexandra publicly claims they all match. (Also, assume the hash-checker is publicly available and anyone who dares can use it to check their own copy of the db and verify Bob's hashes.) If this is the extent of Bob's network activity, can Bob get in trouble in the U.S.?

type0 6y ago

Twitter is the counterfeit of Jaiku and should be closed for the benefit of all the humanity.

musicale 6y ago

Researchers usually want visibility and impact, and paywalls are in opposition to both. Moreover, most academic research in the US is government funded, so citizens deserve access to publications.

3131s 6y ago

The largest repository of knowledge in the history of humanity, gotta make sure we destroy that!

3131s 6y ago

Intellectual property laws are going to be more deadly than usual in the next few years. The populations of many countries won't get vaccines until 2022 and beyond, it's completely unnecessary and immoral.

yantrams 6y ago

Apologies in advance for side tracking the discussion. I came across this post on r/india looking for a volunteer Russian Interpreter for a talk by Alexandra Elbakyan, the founder of Sci-Hub. If anyone is interested, please reach out to the OP of https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/kpl5l4/looking_for_a_russian_to_english_interpreter/ https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/kpl5l4/looking_for_a...

hemantv 6y ago

Wait until you are on the wrong side of these ideologues. These are people not some principled institutions.