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Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

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Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#141

Post by leephillips »

golergka wrote: post #139
leephillips wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for digging that up, I appreciate it; I didn’t think of looking in the Archive. We’ll have to disagree about whether her reaction was hysterical. She called my article “ridiculous” and compared it to recommending that people use horse-and-buggy transportation. I was pretty mystified by the tenor of her remarks. One of my points was that Sci-Hub could become unavailable, either globally or locally, so it’s good…

Honestly, this seems to be a cultural thing. Having been exposed to both Russians and Americans, I would never dare use those words in a disagreement with American colleague, for example. But talking to a Russian one, I would use much harder ones for my point to be taken seriously, and would not have expected any bad blood over it.

Well, then I hope I’m wrong about the vehemence behind her remarks. But I’m still puzzled about the reason for her objections in the first place. What’s so wrong about mentioning that there are some ways to get reprints besides Sci-Hub?

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#142

Post by nautilius »

leephillips wrote: post #134
crumbshot wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let me reply to your last sentence by saying I do not think it is sexist to use the word “hysterical”, which has a well-understood meaning apart from its etymology, to someone who happens to be female. Then do you think maybe you misread Elbakyan's tone from her word choices, in a similar way to how I misread yours? She even stated in her last reply that she wasn't being hostile.

Of course that’s possible. Everyone can make their own judgments. I stand by my characterization. But no, I was interpreting her remarks based on the meanings of the words she used, not their etymologies. That’s usually more productive.

Where is that "uncontrolled extreme emotion" in her words, that you refer to? All I see is some guy who is still hurt almost a year after someone disagreed with him on Twitter. I can't imagine Alexandra has any sleepless nights over this, you may want to reflect on who is the "hysterical" party in your story.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#143

Post by manquer »

vslira wrote: post #93
tbabej wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She did not have to, but she voluntarily chose to, in order to have a shot of winning this case. If she didn't comply with the court's orders, I assume the chances of winning would plummet. From the article: > One reason is that Elbakyan believes she has a shot at winning the case, and her odds might improve if she plays by the rules. “I want the Indian court to finally support free access to science,” she said. If t…

Can third parties (especially foreigners) finance legal battles in India? Can we donate?

You can donate to her directly.

There is no hard restriction on how lawyers are paid . Judges may limit something in some specific cases etc, also they have paperwork to do for any foreign income for tax purposes. That's not unusal in many countries.

There maybe optics problem occasionally if local issue gets international funding it can undermine support etc, here the other party copyright holders are also international and she /libgen is also not local, so perhaps not as much a problem her funding comes globally

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#144

Post by [deleted] »

syshum wrote: post #140
breck wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to start organizing and go on the offensive: abolish copyright and patents through a constitutional amendment— http://www.breckyunits.com/the-intellectual-freedom-amendmen... If you’re wondering how to get the public to support it, we need to start spreading the truth. The opioid crisis kicked off by Purdue? Wouldn’t have happened without USPTO. Big tech monopolists? They get their monopoly power from IS laws…

For the US, the fast path would be to push for all Federally Funded Research to be published under a Public Domain License, no different than NASA Images, recordings, or other public agency created research. We need to extend those provisions to include all research that gets federal tax money

[deleted]

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#146

Post by spindle »

stavros wrote: post #135
jeroenhd wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe you can publish on Sci-Hub, but you can join the open access movement by publishing your work on sites such as Arxiv where anyone can read your work. If every scientist published their work on open access platforms, Sci-Hub wouldn't need to exist in the first place.

Why do people not do that? As far as I know, publishing in Arxiv is as simple as uploading the PDF, so I'm wondering why scientists don't do that themselves by default. Does anyone know?

FWIW, I once backed off publishing on Arxiv because their requirements for the exact format of my PDF were too restrictive. At the time I didn't feel stronly about it one way or the other, and if I was in the same situation maybe I'd persevere. But it would have taken an enormous amount of time to reformat my large and complicated PDF. I've heard the same complaint from others.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#147

Post by manquer »

ivoras wrote: post #77

What about China? It's famously irreverent towards western-style copyright, seems like it could (well, it's a difficult "it", granted) score some brownie points by making a mirror which is accessible both within and without their great firewall.

Not officially. China is also signatory for various intellectual property laws etc.

They just turn a blind eye towards piracy when it suits them.

Indian courts on other hand have in the past taken public decisions in the favour of common good, like with pharmaceutical parents recently.

A victory here won't solve everything, but it is a start. Developing world is where the licensing fees are impossibly expensive for even universities. Perhaps an Indian precedent would help in other countries.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#148

Post by stereoradonc »

One straightforward way is to support many private Telegram groups popping up to support academicians. SciHub was a juicy target. When you scatter the users in other domains, they will regroup and be harder to track.

Good luck to the scientific publishers. You can expend any resources to track users across the Internet.

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