{"id":5726,"date":"2017-06-27T17:09:28","date_gmt":"2017-06-27T17:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cpip.gmu.edu\/?p=5726"},"modified":"2026-02-03T20:55:36","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T20:55:36","slug":"judgment-against-sci-hub-is-a-win-for-authors-and-publishers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/2017\/06\/27\/judgment-against-sci-hub-is-a-win-for-authors-and-publishers\/","title":{"rendered":"[Archived Post] Judgment Against Sci-Hub is a Win for Authors and Publishers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"shelfLast week, the United States Court for the Southern District of New York entered a default judgment<\/a> against Sci-Hub, the Library Genesis Project (LibGen), and a number of related websites and site operators for the willful infringement of dozens of copyright-protected scholarly articles. The judgment comes two years after Elsevier\u2014an international academic publishing company now part of RELX Group<\/a>\u2014brought suit against the websites and their operators for the unauthorized reproduction and distribution of numerous works to which Elsevier owns the copyright. In awarding the maximum in damages and making permanent a preliminary injunction against US domain name registries associated with the defendants, the decision is not only a win for authors and copyright owners, but represents a strong indictment against the infringement of scholarly works, no matter the purported public benefit.<\/p>\n

Sci-Hub\u2014dubbed by some as \u201cthe Pirate Bay for science\u201d\u2014was founded in 2011 by Alexandra Elbakyan, a Kazakhstani graduate student and computer programmer who created a website and search engine that bypassed publisher paywalls to collect and distribute copyright-protected academic articles and educational works. The website was unique in that it was one of the first to automate the process of overriding paywalls, eventually partnering with a Russia-based online repository of academic works known as Library Genesis, or LibGen, to store its catalog of both illicitly and legally obtained articles. To access databases such as Elsevier\u2019s ScienceDirect portal, Elbakyan and her fellow operators claim that legitimate subscribers share their passwords, but also admit that passwords are obtained using the same phishing methods hackers use to steal personal and financial information.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, like other websites that offer free and instant access to stolen content, Sci-Hub became extremely popular<\/a> all over the world, with hundreds of thousands of download requests per day and a catalog of over 50 million papers. It wasn\u2019t long before authors and copyright owners took notice, and in 2015, academic publishing company Elsevier filed a complaint<\/a> against Sci-Hub, Elbakyan, LibGen, and a group of related websites and operators for copyright infringement and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.<\/p>\n

In response to the suit, Elbakyan took a defiant stance<\/a>, arguing that Sci-Hub\u2019s acts of copyright infringement are justified and making the brazen statement that \u201c[a]ll content should be copied without restriction.\u201d Instead of hiring an attorney, Elbakyan sent a letter to the court accusing Elsevier of operating \u201cby racket\u201d and asking why, like her website, it couldn\u2019t just provide access to everything for free.<\/p>\n

Perhaps in response to Elbakyan\u2019s naivite, Tom Allen, then president of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), warned that in addition to the lost revenues to authors and publishers, pirating scholarly materials has a harmful effect on the quality of scientific publications and public health. He explained:<\/p>\n

Scholarly publishers work to ensure the accuracy of the scientific record by issuing corrections and revisions to research findings as needed; Libgen typically does not. As a result, its repository of illegally obtained content poses a threat to both quality journal publishing and to public health and safety.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The response of Elbakyan and her supporters to the lawsuit has been a common contention that the academic nature of the content on Sci-Hub somehow elevates the unauthorized distribution above any copyright infringement liability. The \u201cpublic good\u201d or \u201cpublic benefit\u201d provided by Sci-Hub is repeatedly invoked, as if copying and distributing scholarly works is different than pirating other content such as music or movies. And while an academic article usually includes facts and ideas that have never been copyrightable, as a whole they are original works of expression\u2014similar to documentary films or educational audio recordings.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this irreproachable concept of the public good is currently influencing important copyright law decisions such as those related to transformative purpose fair use. In the high-profile Authors Guild v. Google <\/em><\/a>case, proponents of the project repeatedly touted the public good that would come from the creation of a massive online index of books, and the Second Circuit cited this benefit when it ultimately found the unauthorized scanning of millions of copyrighted works to be fair use. It\u2019s a trend that increasingly sees more illegal acts of appropriation deemed fair use because of an alleged public good that may or may not occur after the infringement, and it\u2019s threatening to disrupt the copyright system.<\/p>\n

Recognizing that acts of unauthorized reproduction can benefit the public but still be illegal infringement is an important part of understanding and maintaining a balanced approach to copyright and fair use. In a press release addressing the Sci-Hub judgment, current President and CEO of the AAP and former Register of Copyrights, Maria Pallante, praised the Court\u2019s acknowledgment of this concept:<\/p>\n

As the final judgment shows, the Court has not mistaken illegal activity for a public good. On the contrary, it has recognized the defendants\u2019 operation for the flagrant and sweeping infringement that it really is and affirmed the critical role of copyright law in furthering scientific research and the public interest.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In its declaratory judgment, the Court awarded Elsevier a maximum $15 million in damages based on the intentional nature of the infringement of a representative sample of 100 works. Along with the maximum damages permitted by law, the judgment makes permanent a 2015 preliminary injunction that required U.S. domain name registries to suspend the defendants\u2019 U.S.-administered domain names, which the AAP believes will be \u201ca deterrent to those who support or do business with illegal operators.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth noting that the judgment was entered against the defendants as a result of their failure to respond and it\u2019s unclear whether it will affect Sci-Hub\u2019s overall operation. Elbakyan and her associates remain defiant, pledging to keep Sci-Hub and its sister websites online by alternating between new and different domain names. It\u2019s a practice that has kept pirate sites such as ExtraTorrent and the Pirate Bay alive despite efforts to shut them down, and remains an obstacle to those dedicated to fighting online infringement.<\/p>\n

But regardless of whether Sci-Hub\u2019s becomes another whack-a-mole pirate site, publishers, authors, and copyright owners should be encouraged by the Southern District\u2019s recognition of illegal acts of infringement no matter the claims of supreme public good. Hopefully, more judges and lawmakers will make the same distinction and restore sense and stability back into the fair use and transformative purpose debates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, the United States Court for the Southern District of New York entered a default judgment against Sci-Hub, the Library Genesis Project (LibGen), and a number of related websites and site operators for the willful infringement of dozens of copyright-protected scholarly articles. The judgment comes two years after Elsevier\u2014an international academic publishing company now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3627,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[337,1218,1290],"class_list":["post-5726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copyright","tag-copyright-2","tag-relx-group","tag-sci-hub"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3627"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5726"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15786,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5726\/revisions\/15786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/ualawip\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}