Scientific research piracy site hit with $15 million fine

Sci-Hub site has been playing a game of domain Whac-a-Mole.

The operator of a searchable piracy site for scientific research papers has been ordered to pay $15 million as fallout from a US copyright infringement lawsuit brought by one of the world's leading scientific publishers, New York-based Elsevier.

The award doesn't mean the six-year-old Sci-Hub site is shuttering, though, despite being ordered to do so. The site has been engaged in a game of domain Whac-a-Mole ever since the case was filed in New York federal court nearly two years ago. And it doesn't mean that the millions of dollars in damages will get paid, either. The developer of the Pirate Bay-like site for academic research—Alexandra Elbakyan of Russia—has repeatedly said she wouldn't pay any award. She didn't participate in the court proceedings, either. US District Judge Robert Sweet issued a default judgement (PDF) against the site this week, but Sci-Hub remains online.

Elsevier markets itself as a leading provider of science, medical, and health "information solutions." The infringing activity is of its subscription database called "ScienceDirect." Elsevier claims ScienceDirect is "home to almost one-quarter of the world's peer-reviewed, full-text scientific, technical, and medical content."

We profiled the dispute a year ago, and we likened Elbakyan's mission to liberate research to the ideals of Aaron Swartz, who believed that knowledge shouldn't be behind paywalls. For Elbakyan's part, she has freed hundreds of thousands of academic papers that have been downloaded for free from the Sci-Hub site. Swartz was notoriously charged as a hacker for trying to free millions of articles from popular academic hub JSTOR. At age 26, he committed suicide just ahead of his federal trial in 2013.

The Association of American Publishers lauded the default judgement.

"As the final judgment shows, the Court has not mistaken illegal activity for a public good," Maria Pallante, the group's president said. "On the contrary, it has recognized the defendants’ 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."

Elbakyan, a 28-year-old bioengineer turned Web programmer from Kazakhstan, did not immediately respond for comment.



ArsTechnica