Sci-Hub, The Repository Of 'Infringing' Academic Papers Now Available Via Telegram

from the whac-a-mole-continues dept

We've been covering the saga of Sci-Hub for a while now. It's the search engine for academic papers that includes a few tricks to access more paywalled academic papers for free, using the academic logins that have been shared with the site for the sake of retrieving more research. Academic journal publishing giant Elsevier has been waging a war with the site, first getting an injunction against its original domain back in December, only to have it quickly pop up elsewhere. Just a little while ago, we noted that the site had lost another domain, though it was still available in a few more places -- as well as directly at its IP address and at a Tor hidden site.

And now Sci-Hub has announced that it's available via the popular messaging app Telegram as well:

Now you can use Sci-Hub in Telegram @scihubot to access full-text articles pic.twitter.com/eEJDoKfm1Z

— Sci Hub (@Sci_Hub) May 14, 2016

From the looks of it, you can just send it a message with the title you want, and it sends you back a download link -- within seconds. From a researcher's standpoint, this seems like it must be quite handy, and certainly again feels a lot like the fairly standard #icanhazpdf process used on social media by academics all the time. Just a little more automated.

Now, I'm sure Elsevier won't be happy at all about this, but the ability to share academic knowledge for the purpose of learning was supposed to be something that copyright law encouraged, rather than shut down. And the more Elsevier freaks out about this, the more people become aware of the service.

Filed Under: academic papers, whac a mole
Companies: elsevier, sci-hub, telegram

Evidence Shows That Megaupload Shutdown Had No Real Impact On Infringement

from the look,-a-mole!-wac!-wac! dept

The first big analysis of what happened to file sharing via cyberlockers following the shutdown of Megaupload shows that there was no slowdown in file sharing -- it's just that the traffic moved elsewhere. The analysis, by Deepfield Networks, concludes that there was no significant drop off in file sharing in the US... but that it has become "staggeringly less efficient" from a network standpoint, because much of it moved to offshore locations over "expensive transatlantic links." This isn't a huge surprise. We've been pointing out for ages, that you can shut down as many sites as you can, and new options will always pop up. Shutting down sites has never worked, but for whatever reason, ICE and the MPAA/RIAA never seem to learn from their past mistakes.

Filed Under: copyright, impact, infringement, whac a mole
Companies: megaupload