How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team • Hacker News Board

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#21

Post by xrisk » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 3:51 PM UTC

jhgb wrote: post #3

anthropodie wrote: post #2

Suppose SciHub looses cases in multiple countries and has to shutdown. What prevents someone from putting entire data as torrent? Piracy is result of unfair prices. Music used to be pirated all the time but then Spotify came along with subscription based services. I don't know anyone who still pirates music. Maybe people with IP and copyright claims should learn from Music industry.

> What prevents someone from putting entire data as torrent? What do you mean by that? It's already a bunch of torrents on the official SciHub page.

Can you point me to these torrents please? I can’t seem to find them.

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#22

Post by BoxOfRain » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 3:53 PM UTC

justinator wrote: post #15

s/defence/defense/

Not all English is American English, in countries influenced by British English defence is often the correct spelling.

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#23

Post by justinator » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

justinator wrote: post #15

s/defence/defense/

Thank you, I've been corrected.

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#24

Post by rramadass » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

>“The way the publishing industry is functioning is unethical. Though what Alexandra Elbakyan is doing is illegal she is countering an industry that is working unethically,”

100% agree with this; Though i would dispute that what she is doing is "illegal". When the deck is completely stacked against you, going outside the rules is not "illegal".

Every rational, educated person on this planet should support free access to Knowledge if we are to achieve a fairer, egalitarian society.

More power to Sci-Hub, LibGen and their brethren !

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#25

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 4:06 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #14

dragonwriter wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's subjective, but that doesn't make it nonexistent. Yes, it does. Subjective assessments have no objective reality.

> Subjective assessments have no objective reality Subjective assessments drive political preferences and policy, to say nothing of human relations and experiences.

Hallicinations of the expressed wishes of divine figures do that, too.

Still doesn't make those figures, or their wishes, real. Beliefs about fair prices exist, fair prices themselves do not.

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#26

Post by belltaco » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #13

danuker wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is a fair price? There is no such thing. An economically optimal price is one that maximizes total profit. If it's too high, fewer people will buy the product, which might reduce profit. If it's too low, the profit margin will be small in spite of lots of units sold.

Only if you assume humans are purely self centered rational agents. In practice, many people do care about what a "fair" price is and don't just charge as much as possible in pursuit of profit.

We are talking about music, not insulin. There's probably hundreds of millions of different songs including the ability to listen for free on radio with ads, YT etc.

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#27

Post by xtracto » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 4:25 PM UTC

anthropodie wrote: post #2

Suppose SciHub looses cases in multiple countries and has to shutdown. What prevents someone from putting entire data as torrent? Piracy is result of unfair prices. Music used to be pirated all the time but then Spotify came along with subscription based services. I don't know anyone who still pirates music. Maybe people with IP and copyright claims should learn from Music industry.

MP3 art shared by napster is different from Knowledge shared by SciHub in that the former was financed privately by record companies while the latter is funded by state taxes (i.e. public money).

At the current state of affairs, Scientific Publishers can be reduced as "curators" of public research publications. They may work very well at that (i.e. reading something from Nature, or from JAMA has its prestige) but there is no reason why they should gate the knowledge behind paywalls. They should offer their "curation/selection" services, dedicated to create lists/collections of scientific articles already published elsewhere for free.

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#28

Post by judge2020 » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

rramadass wrote: post #24

>“The way the publishing industry is functioning is unethical. Though what Alexandra Elbakyan is doing is illegal she is countering an industry that is working unethically,” 100% agree with this; Though i would dispute that what she is doing is "illegal". When the deck is completely stacked against you, going outside the rules is not "illegal". Every rational, educated person on this planet should support free access…

> When the deck is completely stacked against you, going outside the rules is not "illegal".

Yes it is. Things are "illegal" when they're in the law book, regardless of which law they're breaking and what they're standing up for.

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#29

Post by frenchy » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 4:42 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #28

rramadass wrote: post #24

>“The way the publishing industry is functioning is unethical. Though what Alexandra Elbakyan is doing is illegal she is countering an industry that is working unethically,” 100% agree with this; Though i would dispute that what she is doing is "illegal". When the deck is completely stacked against you, going outside the rules is not "illegal". Every rational, educated person on this planet should support free access…

> When the deck is completely stacked against you, going outside the rules is not "illegal". Yes it is. Things are "illegal" when they're in the law book, regardless of which law they're breaking and what they're standing up for.

In most places, and certainly in places that practice "common law" and democracy, part of what makes something legal is its moral acceptability. The laws on the books exist to reflect that and to make things function efficiently and fairly. Without that, laws are simply a tool of violence and oppression by the authorities (or the majority, in case of a democracy) against their population.

That's why we have juries of peers, and the ability of a jury to say "this person did the thing, but they shouldn't be punished for it".

Re: How Indian lawyers, scientists gave Sci-Hub its first legal defense team

#30

Post by godelmachine » Mon, Sep 20, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

I wish there was a way I could financially support Sci-Hub.

The only impediment is they accept cryptocurrency and I am too lazy to get well versed with it. Not forgetting to mention the prices are currently through the roof, and TBH unaffordable for me.

But just like I regularly support Wikipedia and USENIX with modest but periodic donations, I would like to support Sci-Hub as well.