Sci-Hub was a popular website that provided access to academic papers free of cost. Elsevier pressed charges of copyright infringement against Sci-Hub at a U.S federal court in New York. In a historic judgment, the court convicted Sci-Hub for violating copyright laws.
As penalty, U.S court has ordered Sci-Hub to pay 15 million dollars as damages to Elsevier, world’s leading publisher of scientific, technical, and medical research. Sci-hub was penalized severely for copyright infringement, as more than 100 academic papers of Elsevier were pirated and downloaded free of cost. This website also contacted pirated copies of academic papers published in subscription journals of Springer Nature, Academic Chemical Society, and Wiley-Blackwell.
Elsevier had sued Sci-Hub in 2015 for copyright infringement as it unlawfully accessed and distributed more than 100 academic papers of Elsevier. The New York district judge convicted Sci-Hub for violating copyright laws severely and ordered to discontinue the website; however, the makers of Sci-Hub did not relent to the court and continued their website under different domain names and IP addresses.
Elsevier requested permanent ban on Sci-Hub in court and 15 million dollars as damages. Alexandra Elbakyan, the founder of Sci-Hub, did not hire any lawyer to represent her in the court. Thus, Elsevier easily won the lawsuit; however, it is not yet clear if Alexandra would relent to court orders.
Alexandra Elbakyan wanted to break the barriers in science and technology by providing free access to scholarly papers. Although several academics concede that the website violated copyright laws, they feel that this was the right step in letting knowledge grow. Most subscription journals of Elsevier are very expensive, so this limits access to published scientific literature. Libraries and academic institutions have been pressing for fairer pricing of subscription journals.
As per latest updates, American Chemical Society (ACS) has also filed a lawsuit against Sci-Hub in US court. The director of communications at ACS has alleged that Sci-Hub has managed to make many spoofed versions of ACS website. With these spoofed websites, Sci-Hub has managed to pirate and distribute many copyrighted journal articles of ACS. ACS also won copyright infringement case against Sci-Hub in November 2017.
According to the latest ruling of US court, Sci-Hub founder has to pay 4.8 million dollars as damages to ACS. Moreover, Sci-Hub and its domains have been asked to discontinue their operation with immediate effect. Search engines, hosting sites, internet service providers, and registries of domain names have been asked to ban Sci-Hub website and its related domains.
After receiving these landmark judgments against copyright infringement, speculations were rife about similar lawsuits against Google and other search engines, because they actively facilitated the operation of pirated academic content from Sci-Hub website. However, directors of ACS have clarified that they have no immediate plans of suing internet service providers and search engines.
Sci-Hub is operated and managed by Alexandra Elbakyan in Russia, which is outside the jurisdiction of US courts. She also does not hold any assets in USA, so it is not yet clear if she would comply with U.S court orders. In other words, this ruling may not really compel Sci-Hub to shut shop, though it is a brave step in deterring piracy of scholarly communications.
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