From: David Prosser <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2017 09:32:22 +0000

I am seriously asking what the “irreparable injury” is to Elsevier’s
customers and to the public.  Joe's answer implies that it is the
existential damage to society whenever a law is broken.  I guess I was
expecting something more specific.

Other answers have suggested that the injury is the collapse of the
subscription basis and the damage that would do to the scientific process -
but is the claim being made that Elsevier has stopped producing any
subscription journals as a result of Sci-Hub’s activity?

Another answer I’ve seen is that the in the process of getting content
Sci-Hub is also gaining usernames and passwords which might be used to hack
institutional systems.  But I can’t see that this was part of the argument
used by Elsevier’s lawyers.  I assume because it is not a copyright issue?

Looking back at the original complaint from June 2015, it would appear that
Elsevier was making the claim that Sci-Hub was causing "irreparable injury
to Elsevier and its publishing partners”, mainly by depriving them of
revenue.  As I say, that is a claim that I can understand.  There is one
mention of customers ("Defendants have undertaken the acts complained of
herein with knowledge that such acts would cause harm to Plaintiffs and
their customers in both the Southern District of New York and elsewhere.”)
but no description of the harm done to them.  And no mention of harm to the
public.  This appears to be a new argument - but I am no lawyer and have
not read all the papers.

I realise that given my history there may be a suspicion that I am asking
these questions somehow in defence of Sci-Hub.  I’m not.  I don’t support
any model of scholarly communications that relies on wholesale breaking of
copyright law.  I am genuinely trying to understand the argument.

On 28 Jun 2017, at 03:54, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

From: Joseph Esposito <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2017 00:49:15 -0400

Is the point that you are just sticking a hole in the rhetoric or are
you seriously suggesting that anyone benefits from illegal activity?
If you are just noting that the rhetoric belongs to the genre of
stupid pontificating, I will remind you that if you want to clean up
that mess, you will need an army and several centuries. But if the
underlying issue is not important--that breaches of the law undermine
our social institutions--then this is a more serious discussion than
access to scholarly material. I really don't think it's wise to be
cute about this.

Joe Esposito


On Mon, Jun 26, 2017 at 10:48 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


From: David Prosser <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2017 09:51:40 +0000

Reading the Nature article I see:

"The defendants’ “unlawful activities have caused and will continue to
cause irreparable injury to Elsevier, its customers and the public,”
Elsevier’s New York-based attorneys, DeVore & DeMarco, told the
court."

I can understand how one might make a case for harm to the publisher
(although proving it might be tricky) - but I’m struggling to think
what the case might be for harm to customers and the public. Am I
missing something obvious?

David