Scholarly paper pirating spikes in Japan, but critics slam journals' 'double-take' fees - The Mainichi

"Illicit free downloads of academic papers are skyrocketing in Japan, reaching some 7.2 million in 2022, a Mainichi Shimbun investigation has found. And while the surge casts doubt on the ethics of the scholars involved, the trend is also believed to be fueled by the relentless increase in academic journal subscription fees.

The site providing download access to paywalled journal articles is "Sci-Hub," established in 2011 by researchers in Kazakhstan. The site can bypass those paywalls using access credentials provided by people at universities that have subscriptions to the journals. And as of June this year, Sci-Hub was giving free and open download access to over 88 million articles. The site's activities do infringe on the journals' copyrights, and some publishers have filed claims for damages overseas...."