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Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

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101–110 of 391 posts

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linking to your own website is fine and all, but not exactly a reference. And it’s hilariously short sighted. Without patent and copywrite protections, you’ll instantly see innovation come out of places where people are paid for their work. US offloading it’s manufacturing in a short sighted move to cheap labor and head-in-sand environmental outlook - sure, let’s kill the design industries too now too. There is a pro…

If going patent-free is good enough for the transistor… Do you have any rebuttal to parent’s points on Purdue and tech monopolies?

Yes, of course.

Do you really think drug cartels need the IPTO? Or that the opioid crisis couldn't possibly have happened if the opioids had been generics?

Who has an IP monopoly on alcohol production? Is alcohol addition a huge problem, or not?

Why do you believe tech monopolies rely specifically on patents and not on massive spending power, political leverage, and other influencing mechanisms?

Do you not understand that if you have the spending power, you can open-source your code and IP without even remotely endangering that monopoly?

The reality is that patents are a relatively tiny element in cost of entry to markets.

It's honestly baffling why the anti-copyright crowd believes removing patents and copyright will be some kind of magic bus ride to utopia, when there is no rational reason whatsoever to believe that.

And none of this has much to do with making scientific papers public domain - because that isn't even the same class of issue.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#102
post #56

This is extremely infuriating. Alexandra Elbakyan has done a huge positive contribution to human civilization, even knowing that it was putting herself at personal risk. She's just 32 years old. How can we help her? Does she need money, public support, vpns in every country? Whatever she needs, mankind is indebted to her and we should help if we can. Anybody who has ever supported their research using Sci-Hub (or Lib…

> I don't know how to best support her. Any suggestions? My guess would be to donate to her. Near the bottom of the page is a BTC address (please check it yourself): https://sci-hub.do/ https://sci-hub.st/ https://sci-hub.se/ All the domains have the same address for me: 12PCbUDS4ho7vgSccmixKTHmq9qL2mdSns Money (and Bitcoin is among the freest money) can be used on whatever she needs.

Cool! Never used bitcoin, but that may be the first time if I figure out how to do it.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#103
post #15

> The website is blocked in a dozen countries, including Austria, Britain, and France. I'm deeply ashamed that my country would block sci-hub given that the current system is preventing scientific development.

Scientists should put Scihub in the acknowledgements section of their papers. As in "this research would not have been possible without Scihub".

Interestingly, when I was still in university, I never used Sci-hub at all. I can download almost any paper using school's network (or VPN) since the library have subscriptions for basically all the major publishers.

I only started to use it occasionally once I've graduated (but I didn't really do any formal research any more.)

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#105
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That metaphor backfirews pretty hard IMO, is that intentional?

How so? Everyone running a light together is the expected behavior if you change the color of the light. In other words, it describes nothing that isn't occurring constantly everywhere. Where does the metaphor backfire?

The metaphor backfires because if everyone runs red lights they will collide with one another, as well as with those going through green lights.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#106

Ms. Elbakyan attacked me rather hysterically on Twitter when she learned of an article¹ on my site that describes several methods to acquire free copies of scientific articles, including Sci-Hub. I tried to get her to tell me why she thought it was terrible of me to mention any non-Sci-Hub pathways, but her replies made less sense with each iteration. So I think that Sci-Hub has been a valuable resource, but I have c…

> Ms. Elbakyan attacked me rather hysterically on Twitter when she learned of an article on my site that describes several methods to acquire free copies of scientific articles,

Just looks like an emphatic disagreement to me: https://web.archive.org/web/20200928010251/https://twitter.c..., https://web.archive.org/web/20200928011503/https://twitter.c...

Also, considering the etymology ("of the womb"), your criticism of her replies comes across as quite sexist.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#108
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know how to best support her. Any suggestions? My guess would be to donate to her. Near the bottom of the page is a BTC address (please check it yourself): https://sci-hub.do/ https://sci-hub.st/ https://sci-hub.se/ All the domains have the same address for me: 12PCbUDS4ho7vgSccmixKTHmq9qL2mdSns Money (and Bitcoin is among the freest money) can be used on whatever she needs.

Just donated, thanks for the tip! (and for anyone wondering, yes that BTC address is correct, I triple-checked).

Thanks for checking but probably best if everyone double checks for themselves too.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#109
post #53
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very confused, why would she ever have to comply with orders of an Indian (or indeed, US) court if she resides in Europe?

It's explained in the article. She thinks there is a chance to win the case in India which would be a useful publicity stunt and therefore complies with the court order.

> win the case in India which would be a useful publicity stunt

It isn't just about publicity, it is also about legal precedent.

In the English common law system, a judge is allowed to cite not just precedent from within their own country's legal system, but also precedent from courts in foreign common law jurisdictions. Foreign courts are not binding precedent, but a judge is allowed to say they are persuaded by the foreign court's reasoning. The propriety of citing foreign court judgements has become rather controversial in the US, but in England and other common law jurisdictions it is an accepted practice which few question.

I doubt a legal precedent from India is going to persuade the courts of developed countries like UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. Even though most of those are technically allowed to consider Indian court decisions (as a fellow common law jurisdiction), they rarely give Indian courts much heed in practice. But it may be much more influential with the courts of developing countries in Africa and elsewhere. That's what Elbakyan is trying to do, win a case in India and then use that as a springboard to winning cases in other countries too.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#110

What will happen to research outside wealthy institutions if Sci-Hub shuts down? Are there alternatives?

Lots of people upload their research to ResearchGate (even though I really dislike the site for other reasons), make it available from their research group's web page, or in some fields upload it to ArXiv or BioRxiv. It's usually not against the terms of paywalled journals to do any of these things. Google Scholar or even the regular Google search engine can be decent at finding these PDF links. As a last resort, if you're serious about wanting to read a paper, you can contact the corresponding author, who will usually email you a copy and be glad you are interested in his/her work, though this becomes a bit impractical if you need access to multiple references.
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