Comment by Vinnl | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Vinnl | Hacker News Reader

Hi all, I made this. I just received a notice from Zeit that they blocked it:

> I am writing to let you know we have blocked your deployment: whereisscihub.now.sh

> This is because the deployment contained illegal content.

> Please let me know if this is not the case or if you have any questions.

I hadn't noticed it was on Hacker News, but that explains the sudden attention.

While I don't believe the site was illegal (it's just a link, after all, and proxied from Wikidata - so that would be illegal too?), I understand that Zeit are not too happy about it.

The source code to the website is at [0], if you want to run it yourself. That said, a recent Wikidata policy change resulted in the data not being great any more [1]. For now, I'd recommend just visiting the Wikipedia page on Sci-Hub to get a recent URL, or use an alternative [3].

Edit: I should also add that this was just an afternoon project I did once, and I should plug the main thing I'm working on in this area. I'm trying to remove the incentive for academics to publish in "top" (but closed access) journals: https://plaudit.pub/

[0] https://gitlab.com/Flockademic/whereisscihub/

[1] https://gitlab.com/Flockademic/whereisscihub/issues/9

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub

[3] https://sci-hub.now.sh/ (though also hosted by Zeit)

Something similar happened to me (https://twitter.com/Citationsy/status/1156626811398307840) when I posted a link to Sci-Hub on my blog. In the EU it’s apparently copyright infringement to link to copyright infringing URLs.

I ended up removing the links because I didn’t want get into more legal trouble with Elsevier. More details here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20606362

We actually had a chat about that on Twitter :) That said, the site didn't really link to infringing material - just to the homepage of Sci-Hub. Technically, you could also append something to the URL to make you end up at a page with infringing content, but there was no explicit link to there from the site, and it can be used for non-infringing content as well.

Yes, I remember :) Absolutely ridiculous that displaying a link to a site that could be used for copyright infringement should itself be infringing. Especially in your case, considering you get the links straight from Wikidata. Did Zeit say if they received some kind of takedown notice, or are they acting on their own?

I posted all comments above; there were no details about takedowns. I think it's an automated message.

It's a bit more complicated and a result of: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-playboy-copyright/play...

Basically, if you post a link and know it links to illegal content, you are in violation of copyright law. If you do not know, you're not in violation, but upon being informed, you do know and have to take down the link.

In case of Sci-Hub, it would be reasonable to assume somebody who made a website with the purpose to link to the ever-changing Sci-Hub domain, that is ever changing because of copyright takedowns, then I'd think a court would find it reasonable for you to know you're linking to something violating somebody else's copyrights and thus are in violation of copyright law yourself, in EU jurisdictions at least.

I do know that the website hosts lots of illegal content. That said, I also know that many people use it just because it's so much more convenient, and who do are allowed to access the material: either because it's already Open Access, or because they're at an institution that has a subscription. See [0]:

> Some critics of Sci-Hub have complained that many users can access the same papers through their libraries but turn to Sci-Hub instead—for convenience rather than necessity. The data provide some support for that claim.

Note also that the article you linked spoke about linking directly to photo's and articles, not to websites that host both infringing and non-infringing content. I presume Wikipedia wouldn't do that either, even though they do link to the homepage.

(And fun fact: some articles published by Elsevier actually do link to Sci-Hub versions of articles. Not really relevant to this, but still funny.)

[0] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/whos-downloading-pir...

Problem is that even when people who have valid licenses are using the site out of convenience, it's still illegal for Sci-Hub to host the content.

Sure it has some legal content too, but it has undeniably and openly a LOT of infringing content (bad faith), so I'd guess a judge would convict. Wikipedia may have some infringing content, but they hardly flaunt it and actually work to minimize such content (good faith).

Linking to "illegal" content is also illegal in some EU country's. Guides or software to get around their censorship is also "illegal" and linking to "illegal" content is ofter attacked under this rule.

You think they would realise how absurd the whole thing is when then have to resort to censorship of censorship.

What you did is not illegal at all, but the law doesn't really matter anymore, so I guess you have fallen into the "pissing off powerful interests" category, which is just as bad as doing illegal stuff. You should consider putting this up as an onion at the least, is quite helpful for some of us. Kudos:)

See https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T243484

Hey Vinnl, would it be alright if I dm you? I think there’s a way to create your service using Handshake.org such that it can’t be shutdown.

For context, Handshake is a new project aiming to create a distributed certificate authority and naming system. Domain names on Handshake are very difficult to shut down, so you could have a sci hub domain on Handshake that continuously tracks the sci hub servers. Users would be able to always access sci hub from the same domain in this case.

I don't think HN has DM functionality, but feel free to contact me on any platform.

In any case, feel free to take the source code and to deploy it elsewhere.

That said, it might be best to have Sci-Hub adopt Handshake directly? I think you might be able to get in touch with Alexandra Elbakyan, the person behind Sci-Hub, through its Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sci_Hub

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