That sounds like stretching the law a bit too much. :) But, regarding piracy of copyright material, indian courts have said that downloading or streaming a movi

That sounds like stretching the law a bit too much. :) But, regarding piracy of copyright material, indian courts have said that downloading or streaming a movie from the internet is not a criminal act. It is only the distribution of copyright material that is illegal and a criminal act. Ofcourse, in this case (SciHub), I am guessing the argument would be that copyrighting research material (science / knowledge) is itself absurd and detrimental to society, and that should trump the interests of the copyright holder.