By offering free access to millions of ‘paywalled’ research papers, Sci-Hub is often described as “The Pirate Bay of Science”.
The site is used by researchers and students from all over the world, to obtain papers they would otherwise have a hard time accessing.
Academic publishers are not happy with the service. They see the site as a threat to their multi-billion dollar businesses and have tried to shut it down through lawsuits and blocking efforts. Thus far these have failed. In fact, Sci-Hub may be more popular than ever.
This doesn’t mean that the pressure is off, however. New blocking lawsuits keep getting filed and Sci-Hub was recently banned from Twitter again. To top it off, the police in the UK are now getting involved as well.
Warning Students and Universities
The City of London Police’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) is now actively warning students not to use Sci-Hub. At the same time, universities are being encouraged to block access to the site from their network to prevent further damage.
According to the police, Sci-Hub uses malicious means, including phishing emails, to trick university staff and students into sharing their login credentials. This information is then used to access paywalled research in order for it to be shared openly, without paying the publishers.
It may appear strange that the police are getting involved in such a matter, but the PIPCU unit is known for its attention to copyright issues. For example, it previously contacted domain registrars in an attempt to suspend pirate sites, without much success.
‘Network and Devices are At Risk’
With this latest effort, PIPCU is helping publishers, suggesting that the safety of students and the university network are both at risk.
“We would urge people to not use Sci Hub, as doing so could pose a threat to their personal information and devices,” says Max Bruce, Cyber Protect Officer from the City of London Police.
“If you’re tricked into revealing your login credentials, whether it’s through the use of fake emails or malware, we know that Sci Hub will then use those details to compromise your university’s computer network in order to steal research papers.”
The risks are even broader according to the police, who warn that credentials of other members of a household could potentially be at risk too. The press release further mentions that people could end up downloading “dangerous” content from the site. Therefore, blocking it would be the best option.
Sci-Hub’s Place in the Academic World
The warning was picked up by the BBC and others. We decided to contact Sci-Hub founder Alexandria Elbakyan to hear her side of the story. Unfortunately, she is yet to respond, but we nonetheless feel the need to add some extra color and context.
At this point, it’s pretty clear that Sci-Hub is violating copyright law. However, when we zoom out a little, we can’t help but notice that the site has pretty much cemented its place in the academic world.
Aside from the fact that millions of researchers and students use it, Sci-Hub has a more lasting effect as well. Every month, new papers are published which actively cite and reference Sci-Hub links in the literature list.
These are not just researchers who write about the Sci-Hub phenomenon. On the contrary, it’s mostly scientists who add Sci-Hub DOI links to their publications, to make it easy for readers to access the articles they reference. A quick Google Scholar search reveals how prevalent this is.
This isn’t the work of just a handful of rogue researchers either. The articles with Sci-Hub links appear in well-respected peer-reviewed journals and publications. That’s certainly a mixed-signal compared to the warning issued by UK police.
Ironically, the Sci-Hub links even appear in publications from the major publishers who have sued Sci-Hub or tried to have it blocked. This includes Elsevier, Springer, and John Wiley & Sons, which are among the biggest players.
Acedemic Publications Reference Sci-Hub
Below is one of the many published examples. In this case, the researchers include a variety of Sci-Hub links in their reference section, directly from the Springer-owned journal website.
In other words, the same publishers who are trying to stop Sci-Hub, help to ‘promote’ the site through their own publications. This is indeed a mixed message.
The Sci-Hub Effect?
Finally, it’s worth noting that references and citations form the foundation of academic publishing. The above shows that Sci-Hub is playing a role here and some argue that the “cybercriminals” actually help the progress of science.
A few weeks ago a new study was published, in a Springer publication, which shows that articles downloaded from Sci-Hub are cited more often, while more Sci-Hub downloads predict future citations.
“The results suggest that limited access to publications may limit some scientific research from achieving its full impact,” the researchers concluded.
While this conclusion can be debated, it’s certainly possible that Sci-Hub may actually benefit science.
That brings us back to the City of London Police. While the advice to students is undoubtedly well-intentioned, we believe that Sci-Hub is much more complex than the average cybercrime case. Discussing it without proper context should almost be considered a ‘crime’ in itself.
