5 ms·

I saw that tweet, but it doesn't change the material reality: try plugging in some DOIs from recent article from the last year, and they will not be there. Sci

I saw that tweet, but it doesn't change the material reality: try plugging in some DOIs from recent article from the last year, and they will not be there. Scihub used to be a great resource, now it's only a resource for old research. Still useful for background material, but not for current work. I also don't understand why the Indian court case has any impact on new article availability. The owner is not Indian. The servers and domains are not Indian. There doesn't seem to be any actual reason to stop adding new articles, other than some idiotic halfbaked point that only hurts the people who need the articles, like when Project Gutenberg banned anyone from a German IP, except this is much worse since there is no way around it for people who need new papers.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
joshuaissac 5y ago
> I also don't understand why the Indian court case has any impact on new article availability. The owner is not Indian. The servers and domains are not Indian. Because Sci-Hub has a good chance of winning the case. The court in question has previously backed a very broad definition of what constitutes fair dealing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Oxford_v._Rameshwari_Photocopy_Service https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Oxford_v._Rame...
- Ansil849 5y ago
  > Because Sci-Hub has a good chance of winning the case. I understand that this is the party line that is parroted whenever this issue comes up, but it does not make any sense as a rationale for keeping new articles off the site. How is not adding any new articles (but, for example, keeping old articles accessible) assisting the possible winning of the case? And more to the point, why does it matter at all if it wins or loses the case? As stated, neither the owner or the infrastructure is Indian, so of what relevancy is this jurisdiction? And further still, the case appears to have been delayed indefinitely. That last update claims that there was going to be an update a few days ago, but there was not. The proceedings are just now a list of one postponement after another [1]. Given that new articles are being held hostage, it thus very obviously benefits the legal system and the prosecution to continue to delay the case indefinitely. [1] https://delhihighcourt.nic.in/dhc_case_status_oj_list.asp?pno=1019626 https://delhihighcourt.nic.in/dhc_case_status_oj_list.asp?pn...
  - sa1 5y ago
    The owner might not be Indian, but she's actively defending the case(through lawyers) in India. Not following the injunction would lead her to losing the case, which is why she followed through. She didn't have to fight the case in India, but she chose to. Why keep old papers and stop adding new papers - that probably depends on the terms of the injunction.
    - Ansil849 5y ago
      > Why keep old papers and stop adding new papers - that probably depends on the terms of the injunction. As per the official tweet that has already been mentioned in this thread [1]: > how about the lawsuit in India you may ask: our lawyers say that restriction is expired already So according to the owner's official Twitter, this is no longer a valid reason, and yet new papers are still not accessible. Why is that? [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/ringo_ring/status/1434356217208623106 https://mobile.twitter.com/ringo_ring/status/143435621720862...
      - sa1 5y ago
        Haven't got around to adding yet?
        Ansil849 5y ago
        That is not how scihub used to function. Scihub used to have an engine, named Plato, which would fetch papers automatically if not already in their database. For the last year now, this essential service has not been operational. This is what the issue I am raising is about.
        sa1 5y ago
        It's clear what you're talking about. Software bitrots over time. Plato might need fixes, might have a huge backlog, lots of stuff can happen.
        5y ago
generationP 5y ago
I have a hunch that the downfall of the "Plato" real-time downloader wasn't the Indian court case but rather the fact that it helped publishers trivially identify the university accounts through which the downloads were happening. Even if the appearance of papers were delayed by a random number of days, there are other pitfalls now, and most importantly, publishers started caring. In particular, Elsevier now slaps UUIDs onto all PDFs you download from them, and no, I'm not just talking of visible watermarks. Other publishers seem to be doing similar things (there was a recent twitter thread on this, retweeted by @textfiles, which I can't find). The rational solution for Sci-Hub seems to be to buffer their uploads and release them in yearly batches, maybe programmatically removing various kinds of watermarks and diffing against the same paper downloaded from a second IP. If this is what they are doing, I'm not surprised. Not sure how much of a winning strategy they have in the long run, though. Guys: post your papers on the arXiv.
- mohammad_ali85 5y ago
  This might be the twitter thread you’re referring to? https://twitter.com/json_dirs/status/1486120144141123584 https://twitter.com/json_dirs/status/1486120144141123584
  - generationP 5y ago
    Yep, thank you!
  - anon_123g987 5y ago
    HN thread from 18 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30082138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30082138.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

joshuaissac 5y ago

> I also don't understand why the Indian court case has any impact on new article availability. The owner is not Indian. The servers and domains are not Indian. Because Sci-Hub has a good chance of winning the case. The court in question has previously backed a very broad definition of what constitutes fair dealing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Oxford_v._Rameshwari_Photocopy_Service https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Oxford_v._Rame...

Ansil849 5y ago
> Because Sci-Hub has a good chance of winning the case. I understand that this is the party line that is parroted whenever this issue comes up, but it does not make any sense as a rationale for keeping new articles off the site. How is not adding any new articles (but, for example, keeping old articles accessible) assisting the possible winning of the case? And more to the point, why does it matter at all if it wins or loses the case? As stated, neither the owner or the infrastructure is Indian, so of what relevancy is this jurisdiction? And further still, the case appears to have been delayed indefinitely. That last update claims that there was going to be an update a few days ago, but there was not. The proceedings are just now a list of one postponement after another [1]. Given that new articles are being held hostage, it thus very obviously benefits the legal system and the prosecution to continue to delay the case indefinitely. [1] https://delhihighcourt.nic.in/dhc_case_status_oj_list.asp?pno=1019626 https://delhihighcourt.nic.in/dhc_case_status_oj_list.asp?pn...
- sa1 5y ago
  The owner might not be Indian, but she's actively defending the case(through lawyers) in India. Not following the injunction would lead her to losing the case, which is why she followed through. She didn't have to fight the case in India, but she chose to. Why keep old papers and stop adding new papers - that probably depends on the terms of the injunction.
  - Ansil849 5y ago
    > Why keep old papers and stop adding new papers - that probably depends on the terms of the injunction. As per the official tweet that has already been mentioned in this thread [1]: > how about the lawsuit in India you may ask: our lawyers say that restriction is expired already So according to the owner's official Twitter, this is no longer a valid reason, and yet new papers are still not accessible. Why is that? [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/ringo_ring/status/1434356217208623106 https://mobile.twitter.com/ringo_ring/status/143435621720862...
    - sa1 5y ago
      Haven't got around to adding yet?
      - Ansil849 5y ago
        That is not how scihub used to function. Scihub used to have an engine, named Plato, which would fetch papers automatically if not already in their database. For the last year now, this essential service has not been operational. This is what the issue I am raising is about.
        sa1 5y ago
        It's clear what you're talking about. Software bitrots over time. Plato might need fixes, might have a huge backlog, lots of stuff can happen.
        5y ago

generationP 5y ago

I have a hunch that the downfall of the "Plato" real-time downloader wasn't the Indian court case but rather the fact that it helped publishers trivially identify the university accounts through which the downloads were happening. Even if the appearance of papers were delayed by a random number of days, there are other pitfalls now, and most importantly, publishers started caring. In particular, Elsevier now slaps UUIDs onto all PDFs you download from them, and no, I'm not just talking of visible watermarks. Other publishers seem to be doing similar things (there was a recent twitter thread on this, retweeted by @textfiles, which I can't find). The rational solution for Sci-Hub seems to be to buffer their uploads and release them in yearly batches, maybe programmatically removing various kinds of watermarks and diffing against the same paper downloaded from a second IP. If this is what they are doing, I'm not surprised. Not sure how much of a winning strategy they have in the long run, though. Guys: post your papers on the arXiv.

mohammad_ali85 5y ago
This might be the twitter thread you’re referring to? https://twitter.com/json_dirs/status/1486120144141123584 https://twitter.com/json_dirs/status/1486120144141123584
- generationP 5y ago
  Yep, thank you!
- anon_123g987 5y ago
  HN thread from 18 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30082138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30082138.