Sci-Hub and Libgen Up against Academic Publishers: A Death Knell for Access to Research? – Part I | SpicyIP

"Recently, three major academic publishers Elsevier, Wiley, and American Chemical Society filed a copyright infringement suit in the Delhi High Court against two groups of websites going by the names ‘Sci-Hub’ and ‘Libgen’ which provide free access to millions of research papers/books. The plaintiffs have sought a permanent injunction against these websites and a dynamic injunction order so that the mirror links of these websites can be blocked as and when the plaintiffs notify. Additionally, the plaintiffs have sought an interim injunction against the defendants.

In a hearing that took place on December 24, the court refused to grant a relief of removing the alleged infringing links from the defendant websites noting that there was no urgency as the alleged infringement had been going on since 2011. However, in light of the stand of Sci-Hub’s counsel, the court ordered that “no new articles or publications, in which the plaintiffs have copyright, will be uploaded or made available”. Libgen was unrepresented in this hearing.

In this three-part post, I seek to dissect this litigation and the interpretive issues before the court...."