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Swedish ISP Blocks Elsevier for Forcing It to Block Sci-Hub (2018)

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Re: Swedish ISP Blocks Elsevier for Forcing It to Block Sci-Hub (2018)

#5
It's a bit complicated case and I wouldn't really blame the court. They were asked to rule on a copyright violation, and copyright despite its bad rep has some good reason to exist. The problem is that companies such as Elsevier have found a way to abuse the system by gaming 3-4 things at once: public universities, research grants, citation/research reputation, and copyright. They are not really s monopoly and it's difficult to blame them for a specific case of a specific journal being owned by them. It's more the overall picture that's broken and abusive, and that's probably beyond the remit of such a court to simply decide. The law applies for everyone, even the big abusers.

Re: Swedish ISP Blocks Elsevier for Forcing It to Block Sci-Hub (2018)

#6

Imagine being against sharing knowledge and advancing human progress.

The counter argument is that someone has to finance creation, review and distribution of knowledge.

Of course Elsevier doesn't pay authors of papers, doesn't pay reviewers (but pays editors who coordinate) has to pay only little (especially compared to days of print magazines) for distribution.

Re: Swedish ISP Blocks Elsevier for Forcing It to Block Sci-Hub (2018)

#7
I'd expect Elsevier to sue them for commandeering their domain name like this. Blocking elsevier.com is one thing (possibly actionable in itself), but taking them to a different site with its own political agenda is a much bigger problem. What if they were hijacking a political party's site, or a government site, or any number of other scenarios? Even if they're up-front about the hijacking, they're still effectively taking control of something that doesn't belong to them, regardless of how one might feel about what Elsevier does.

Re: Swedish ISP Blocks Elsevier for Forcing It to Block Sci-Hub (2018)

#8

Imagine being against sharing knowledge and advancing human progress.

The counter argument is that someone has to finance creation, review and distribution of knowledge. Of course Elsevier doesn't pay authors of papers, doesn't pay reviewers (but pays editors who coordinate) has to pay only little (especially compared to days of print magazines) for distribution.

In many, if not most, cases taxpayers, endowments or corporations fund the research.

Elsevier just clips the ticket.

Re: Swedish ISP Blocks Elsevier for Forcing It to Block Sci-Hub (2018)

#9

Imagine being against sharing knowledge and advancing human progress.

The counter argument is that someone has to finance creation, review and distribution of knowledge. Of course Elsevier doesn't pay authors of papers, doesn't pay reviewers (but pays editors who coordinate) has to pay only little (especially compared to days of print magazines) for distribution.

Which means its not a counter argument.

Re: Swedish ISP Blocks Elsevier for Forcing It to Block Sci-Hub (2018)

#10
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counter argument is that someone has to finance creation, review and distribution of knowledge. Of course Elsevier doesn't pay authors of papers, doesn't pay reviewers (but pays editors who coordinate) has to pay only little (especially compared to days of print magazines) for distribution.

Which means its not a counter argument.

Exactly, it's a talking point and I wish people would stop propagating it.
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