Elsevier sends copyright threat to site for linking to Sci-Hub

Cory Doctorow 1:50 pm Fri Aug 2, 2019

Sci-Hub (previously) is a scrappy, nonprofit site founded in memory of Aaron Swartz, dedicated to providing global access to the world's scholarship — journal articles that generally report on publicly-funded research, which rapacious, giant corporations acquire for free, and then charge the very same institutions that paid for the research millions of dollars a year to access.

In a field of giant, corrupt monopolists, Elsevier is still notable for its rapacious conduct, so it's not surprising to learn that the company has sent a copyright threat to a to Citationsy, a service that helps scholars and others create citations to scientific and scholarly literature, alleging that merely linking to Sci-Hub is a copyright infringement.

Citationsy points out that Elsevier owns one of its competitors, the "very mediocre" Mendeley.

1/12 So something not-fantastic happened yesterday.
I received an email from a lawyer at @twobirds, @moniquewadsted, on behalf of @ElsevierConnect regarding my blog post about where to download research papers and scientific articles for free. https://t.co/Bf3H19RZ14

— Citationsy (@citationsy) July 31, 2019

(Thanks, Cenk!)

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